Category Archives: Preserved

Thai Roasted Chili Paste (Nham Prik Pao)

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For those addicted to fiery flavours, experimenting with a new chili variety or a new hot seasoning is always an exciting adventure. This simple chili paste, completely different from anything I have ever tasted, has proven an extraordinary discovery. Obligatory ingredient of the famous Thai hot and sour shrimp soup (Tom Yum Goong), roasted chili paste (Nham Prik Pao/Nam Prik Pao) is widely available in Asian grocery shops, but it’s so easy and quick to prepare, I strongly discourage you from the shopping trip.

All you need are shallots, garlic, dried chilies, oil and, after about twenty minutes, you obtain a surprisingly complex, aromatic, smoky seasoning that can enrich many – not only Thai – dishes. Even a tiny amount of this paste will transform any boring stir-fried meat, seafood or soup into a fragrant, well-seasoned meal.

I have found this recipe in “Real Thai. The Best of Thailand’s Regional Cooking” by Nancie Mc Dermott, the book I mentioned last week when I presented you the fantastic Pork Curry without coconut milk. Apparently, this paste is traditionally roasted over charcoals, but the author’s dry-frying method can be made in every kitchen. I have followed the author’s instructions, but using a food processor instead of a mortar and slightly changing the ingredients’ amounts.

Obviously, the dish I prepared shortly after I made this paste was the above-mentioned Hot and Sour Shrimp soup (I will write about it soon) and it was just perfect. Then, the following day I simply added this paste to stir-fried shrimp and obtained once more a delicious result. According to the author, the paste will keep at room temperature for at least a month, so I hope to experiment with it in many more meals.

If you like the idea of making your own oily chili seasoning, you might be interested in the moderately hot and completely different Japanese thick sesame and chili oil condiment called Taberu Rayu:

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TIP: Unless you are a crazy hot food addict, make sure you remove all the chili seeds. As you see above, I didn’t and I think me and my husband are the only people I know who can enjoy food seasoned with this explosive paste.

Preparation: about 20 minutes

Ingredients (yields about 125 – 150 ml/ 1/2 cup or a bit more):

6 big garlic cloves, unpeeled and halved lengthwise

8 small shallots, unpeeled and halved lengthwise

15 small dried chilies 

250 ml / 1/2 cup oil (I have used peanut oil) (+ a small amount for dry-frying, if necessary)

Warm a pan or a wok, pour a tiny amount of oil (or not, if you have a pan which allows the absence of fat). Dry-fry the chilies at low heat, constantly stirring for about 5 minutes until they become darker but make sure they are not burnt.

Remove the chilies.

Dry-fry the garlic and shallots (you can fry them together or separately depending on the size of your pan or wok) until they have charred black spots, but, once more, do not let them burn completely.

Put the garlic and shallots aside and when they are cool enough to be handled, remove the peel.

Remove the seeds from the chilies (or, if you are very bold, leave them) and the stems.

Put the three ingredients in a food processor and mix until a thick, relatively smooth paste is formed (mine was slightly chunky).

Heat the 250 ml oil in a pan and, constantly stirring, fry the paste for about 5 minutes until it darkens.

The oil will be almost totally absorbed by the paste, so you will end up with a rather small batch.

Put the paste into a jar, wait until it cools down, close well the jar and keep at room temperature for at least one month.

Pineapple and Chili Jelly

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January is maybe not the most exciting month to fill one’s pantry with jams, pickles and other preserves, but there is certainly still some work to be done. Pineapple, like certain other exotic fruits, is in full season here in winter and, given its low price and ubiquity, this is probably the best moment to put it into jars. This golden yellow jelly is until now the best pineapple preserve I have tested. The method, as well as my beloved hot and sweet flavours’ combination, make this jelly similar to Hot Pepper Jelly, Apricot and Chili Jelly or Green Tomato and Chili Jelly. A unique pineapple aroma is what makes all the difference.

This jelly goes well with both Asian and Western dishes. I often have it with grilled or stir-fried meat, vegetables, on steamed rice or as a sandwich spread and it’s fabulous with fish and seafood in general. You can also serve it as a dip with crackers, nachos or… why not with Baked Wonton Chips from my previous post?

TIPS:

-Some of you might have probably heard that pineapple (as well as kiwi and some other fruits) stop jelly from… jelling. This is absolutely true, but only when it comes to raw fruit. Cooked for some time, pineapple loses this troublesome characteristic.

-Since every pepper variety is different and everyone has different preferences (or chili resistance level), it is difficult to say exactly how many chilies should be used. Adjusting is not easy since the jelly tastes stronger when it’s still hot (and it should be put still hot into the jars). The best idea is to stick to the same chili variety, make a small first batch, put aside a couple of tablespoons and taste the mixture when it has cooled down. It might be too late for this batch, but it will give you an idea of how the following ones should be modified. Needless to say, the below amounts should be treated rather as approximate (this jelly was very hot).

-The sugar and vinegar amounts depend of course on your preferences, but also on the pineapple’s sweetness. Try with the minimal amounts (see below) and increase them if needed.

-It’s a good idea to prepare different hotness levels of this jelly and label jars as “slightly hot”, “medium hot”, “very hot” etc..

-Do not forget to write down the exact amount of chili, sugar, vinegar, etc. you have used, so that you can improve the recipe next season or simply make sure you stick to the good one.

Preparation: about 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 kg pineapple (weighed after being peeled), i.e. approximately one big pineapple

160 g – 200 g (5,5 oz – 7 oz) caster sugar

10 bird’s eye chilies or 10 bigger medium hot chilies

160 ml – 200 ml (5,5 – 6,8 fl oz) cider vinegar (4,5%)

25 g powdered pectin

1 flat tablespoon salt

Core the peppers, discard the stems and wash thoroughly removing the seeds (or not, if you want a very hot jelly).

Peel the pineapple, cut into chunks and mix with chilies in a food processor.

Combine the mixed fruit with the remaining ingredients in a big pan.

Bring to the boil on high heat and, stirring, keep boiling for about 20 minutes.

Lower the heat and simmer for 10 more minutes.

Taste it and adjust the taste adding the vinegar, the sugar or the chili if needed (bearing in mind the chili and the vinegar taste is stronger when the jelly is hot). The most important is that the mixture doesn’t have a very sour taste.

Add the pectin and, constantly stirring, keep at medium heat for 10 more minutes.

/At this point you can (after the jelly has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year./

Spoon the jelly, still hot, into clean and dry jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the jelly, its level of hotness and don’t forget to mark the date.

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year (I have opened a two year-old one recently and it was in a perfect state).

Harihari Zuke (はりはり漬け), Pickled Dried Daikon

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Drying fruits, vegetables and mushrooms is not only a way of preserving them. First of all, they have a different use in the kitchen and often become so good and unique, they could never be substituted by their fresh versions (it’s maybe a question of personal preferences, but I would never put fresh mushrooms in Ragù alla bolognese).  I have been drying fresh produce for many years (I have recently posted here several methods to dry apples), but doing this with the long Asian white radish called daikon has never crossed my mind. When I saw pickled dried daikon at Hiroyuki’s blog (Hiroyuki’s Blog on Japanese Cooking), I was very intrigued and curious but didn’t expect much more than a moderately flavoursome, interesting side-dish and certainly not the excellent taste and extraordinary texture it has changed into! I also like fresh daikon a lot, but once dried and pickled, it undergoes a magical transformation.

Daikon is one of the staple Japanese vegetable and its dried version is quite popular too. It is often used in simmered dishes and sold in two forms: wari boshi daikon (thicker strips) and shredded daikon called kiri boshi daikon (go to see the difference here at Hiroyuki’s blog). Harihari zuke (pickled dried daikon) calls for the thicker version (wari boshi daikon). Just like most Japanese pickles, these have a delicate, slightly sweetish taste, but this is where the similarity ends. The very special chewy, but at the same time crunchy texture is what makes them unique and, in my case, addictive. Thank you so much, Hiroyuki, for this extraordinary discovery!

If you don’t find thickly cut dried daikon, wari boshi daikon is ridiculously easy to prepare, whatever method you use (it’s also an excellent way to use up leftover wilted, dying daikon!). I haven’t even checked if I can get it in my city because I knew it would be cheaper when made at home and moreover I wanted to use organic vegetables. For this first experiment I used only one daikon, but after the surprisingly good outcome I have just started to dry a new, this time much bigger batch. This way I will have dried daikon ready any time I feel like preparing this wonderful snack again.

I have slightly changed Hiroyuki’s proportions in the pickling liquid and have omitted seaweed strips (see the original Hiroyuki’s recipe here).

If you don’t feel like drying daikon, you might like these tsukemono (Japanese pickles):

kyurinop

Cucumber Pickled in Vinegared Soy Sauce (Kyuuri no kyuuchan)

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Pickled Ginger (Gari)

pickledradishp

Pickled Pink Radish

TIPS: In Japan daikon is usually dried in the sun. Of course, given the season, I couldn’t do this. In the winter I dry fruits and vegetables on radiators: it’s quick, it doesn’t require much attention and doesn’t consume any additional energy. If you don’t have radiators, you can dry them using either the oven set at lowest temperature or hang it over the stove and wait until it dries by the heat produces while you cook (the latter can last a bit more). Of course, if you have a dehydrator, you don’t need me to tell you how to do it. Click here to see detailed description of the drying methods I used for example with apples and which apply to most cut fruits or vegetables.

Fresh chili is not obligatory here, but a it is very pleasant addition if you like hot food.

Preparation (3 hours + drying process, if you don’t have dried daikon, which depends on the method used, see here): 

Ingredients: 

1 medium daikon (about 300 g – 350 g/about 11-13 oz) or a handful (filling loosely a 125 ml/ 1/2 cup container) of wariboshi (thick strips of dried daikon)

4 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce or 3 tablespoons normal soy sauce+1 tablespoon water

4 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 flat tablespoon sugar (I have used agave syrup)

1 fresh medium-hot small chili, seeds removed

Frist dry the daikon (wariboshi, i.e. thicker version).

Peel the daikon, cut horizontally into 7 – 8 cm (about 3 in) chunks (I have cut my daikon in three parts).

Then cut each piece lengthwise in two, then cut each half lengthwise into 1 cm-thick strips.

They should be more or less similarly thick, but not necessarily identical.

Dry it following the instructions I gave here (using a radiator, an oven or hanging it above the stove).

When the daikon has dried completely (it has to be tough when you touch it: the drier it is, the longer it will keep; otherwise it can become mouldy), you can start the pickling process.

If dried daikon strips are too long to be considered “bite-sized”, cut them in two.

Put the daikon strips into a bowl of boiling water and leave there for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime dissolve the sugar in the mixture of vinegar and soy sauce.

Shred the chili pepper and put into the pickling mixture.

Squeeze the soaked daikon and dry it. Put it into the pickling mixture and leave in the fridge for 3 hours, shaking from time to time so that it pickles equally.

Eventually, the dried strips will absorb all the pickling liquid (the photo above was taken only after ten minutes’ pickling, hence the liquid at the bottom).

Such pickles can be left in the fridge for several days (or maybe weeks? I have no idea because I have managed to keep them only for two days).

Celery Kimchi

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celerykimchip

“Charles would love it!” was one of my first thoughts when I tasted this new version of kimchi. First of all, I know that Charles (my blogging friend from 5 Euro Food) loves kimchi and Korean food. Moreover, we have recently had a most interesting conversation about celery (don’t laugh!), which Charles adores and I only start discovering. I am sure that someone has already tried making celery kimchi, but I swear it was my own idea (although maybe Hyosun’s kind suggestion of a Korean celery side dish has put me on the right tracks…). Whatever was the trigger, when I saw celery stalks in my fridge and two containers of kimchi above them (yes, I have become a notorious kimchi maker quite a long time ago), I thought “why don’t I “kimchi” the celery too?”.

The result is stunningly good. The celery has stayed crunchy, refreshing, but tougher than radish in kimchi. Its anise aroma, instead of disappearing, has curiously doubled, so even after a couple of days, the not fully mature kimchi is already particularly strong. (UPDATE: After 5 days the celery aroma started to weaken and sadly the kimchi started to lose its appeal…). I suppose this is only for the celery fans and I wouldn’t advise it to those who hate anise aroma either. For me, who only starts to discover the magic world of celery, this kimchi is a revelation and I am already making place for an additional, constant container in my fridge.

As a reminder, kimchi (김치), is a Korean method to ferment vegetables with garlic, chili and some other ingredients. Chinese (Napa) cabbage and daikon (white radish) kimchi are the most popular, but I think my all-time favourite is cucumber kimchi, I have discovered thanks to Charles’s suggestion. Kimchi has a very powerful smell, but once you taste it and love it, the smell will never be associated with anything unpleasant. It is spicy, hot, sour and, like most fermented vegetables, very healthy. High in fiber, low in calories and fat, it is packed with vitamin C (thanks to the fermentation) and carotene. It also contains several other vitamins, helps digestion, is said to prevent certain cancers… Its importance in the Korean cuisine cannot be compared to anything in any European food culture I know. Apart from being served as a side dish, kimchi is used in fried rice, stew and soups.

I fill my kimchi stock regularly, so that I have at least one kind in the fridge. It’s a perfect side dish and a quick way to add vegetables to any meal, especially when one doesn’t feel like cooking anything more or even making a salad. I also use it often (the cabbage version) in fried rice (see the recipe here) which thanks to kimchi’s strong flavours and its “sauce”, doesn’t require any additional seasoning. I haven’t tried it yet in soups, but am planning to do it soon.

The traditional, whole cabbage kimchi requires some dexterity (or maybe I am too clumsy?) and my three experiments were not fully successful. Its lazy version I prepare, the radish kimchi and the (also lazy) cucumber kimchi are ridiculously easy and can only get better in time, while we adapt the seasonings, the hotness level and the fermentation time to our palate. In short, if you like hot flavours and garlic, do try kimchi one day. Hyosun from Korean Bapsang is my main inspiration in Korean cookery and my radish and cucumber kimchi are based on her easy-to-follow recipes. The easy cabbage kimchi recipe comes from Shu Han’s Mummy I can cook!. I have based my celery version on radish kimchi. Thank you, Hyosun and Shu Han, for introducing me to the world of kimchi.

If celery is not your cup of tea, I propose more crowd-pleasing versions of kimchi (nowadays my chili powder is darker, hence the difference in hues):

daikonkimchip

Radish kimchi

makkimchip

Easy Chinese/Napa cabbage kimchi

cucumberkimchip

And my favourite: Cucumber kimchi

TIPS:

UPDATE: Contrary to the above kimchi, the celery version was excellent only for the first several days. After about 5 days it started to get too pungent and strong. I advise eating it quickly! This is an ephemeral kimchi :-)

Use younger celery stalks which do not require peeling (i.e. which don’t have “threads”). The process will be quicker. I find younger celery bunches in organic shops, but of course it depends on the country you live in.

Hyosun Ro’s and traditional Korean recipes call for raw shrimp or sometimes raw oyster as the fermentation enhancer, but since I can only get frozen shrimp, I thought it would be safer to replace it with additional fish sauce.

Wear gloves if you manipulate kimchi with your hands (apart from the smelly side there is lots of chili in it).

If you taste your kimchi and it seems very bitter, leave it to ferment for additional 24 hours. I did it with my radish kimchi and miraculously the bitterness disappeared!

Preparation: 1 hour + min. 2 days, but 2 weeks are optimal; the kimchi you see above was one week old and improved every day

Ingredients (I adapted the ingredients to my very small “test” batch):

500 g/about 1 lb rather young celery stalks (daikon) cut into 3 cm (a bit more than 1 inch) pieces

3 heaped tablespoons Korean dried chili (my kimchi wasn’t very hot, just hot, but it depends on the chili’s hotness)

1 flat teaspoon grated or crushed garlic

1/2 flat teaspoon grated fresh ginger

chopped green onions (or European chives)

salt (I used about 2 flat tablespoons)

1/2 teaspoon glutinous rice flour

4 tablespoons fish sauce or (as advised by Hyosun Ro):

2 tablespoons finely minced saeujeot (salted shrimp)

1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 raw shrimp (ground)

Prepare the rice paste combining the rice flour with about 20 ml water. Let the mixture simmer until it thickens.

Sprinkle the celery with salt and leave them for 30-40 minutes. (They will release some water but won’t soften like radish does).

Put the celery into a big container (with a lid) and combine well with the remaining ingredients.

Taste and if you think it’s not salty enough, add some fish sauce (Hyosun Ro says it should be just a bit too salty).

Cover with the lid, press with your hands (wear gloves!) to remove the air from between the celery pieces and leave for two days to ferment in room temperature. (Mine has fermented for three days because I prefer it stronger).

Put into the fridge after two days or more. In general it gets stronger every day.

You can refrigerate it only to make it cold and eat it straight away after the fermentation process or you can wait several days or weeks to see how the flavours change and at which stage you prefer it (Hyosun Ro says it requires two weeks to develop the best flavours and I totally agree).

You can keep kimchi in the fridge for several weeks.

Ajvar (Balkan Pepper Spread)

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Ajvar (pronounced “aye-var”) is a roasted red pepper spread (or “relish”), extremely popular in Balkan countries, but apparently with Serbian origins. The simplest version of ajvar contains only peppers and garlic, but many people add aubergines and this is what I did. The Turkish biber salçası and Romanian zacuscă are similar spreads, although the latter contains a smaller proportion of peppers.

A couple of years ago I bought a jar of ajvar in a nearby shop. It was inedible. When Ping (from Ping’s Pickings) proudly presented her home-made ajvar, I realised I had probably been unlucky with the low-quality commercial brand. From what I know Ping doesn’t have Balkan origins and doesn’t even live in Europe, so her enthusiastic comments were even more convincing. Then Mr. Three-Cookies (Three Cookies and Easily Good Eats blogs) prepared it too and his successful results were more than enough to make me dream of home-made ajvar. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to prepare it last year, but I have never forgotten about it (I keep on seeing the hated commercial jars quite often!).

A couple of days ago I stumbled upon very cheap Hungarian (read: the best) long red peppers, the perfect variety to prepare ajvar. I have bought three kilos and embarked on the ajvar adventure too. I will not lie. Even though ajvar is not difficult, the whole process is long, requires a lot of work and the yield is low. Apart from these “details”, this spread (or relish) is totally worth all the hassle. It tastes like nothing I have ever eaten, is versatile, addictive and amazingly good. It’s a fantastic bread spread for toasts, sandwiches, wraps, tortillas and it can also be served as a dip with snacks or sauce with grilled meat. Look out for cheap peppers and prepare it. I promise you will not regret the efforts.

My recipe is a mixture of what I found on Ping’s blog, Mr. Three-Cookies’s blog and a Serbian blog called Palachinka. Thank you so much, Ping and Mr. Three-Cookies, for the inspiration and for emboldening me to prepare this unique, wonderful dish. Thank you, Marija, for the extremely helpful photos and useful tips!)

TIPS:  I wanted my ajvar a bit spicy, hence the chili peppers, but mild version is probably more popular.

Apparently the best texture is obtained with a meat grinder, but since I don’t have one, I quickly mixed everything in a food processor.

This is a short-term, fridge preserve. The author of Palachinka advises covering with hot oil and adding sodium benzoate (which I even happen to have), but since my yield was only about one litre and since it quickly “melts” every day, I thought I will not bother with it. If you want to keep the jars in the pantry, check how to do it on her blog.

Preparation: 2 days

Ingredients (yields about 1 litre):

3 kg (about 6,6 lbs) red long sweet peppers (at worst you can use bell peppers; they have a

thicker skin, so the yield will be higher, but they are less aromatic)

fresh chilies (I have added 3 medium hot chilies)


500 g (about 1,1 lb) aubergines

5 big garlic cloves, peeled

4 tablespoons oil

about 1 flat tablespoon salt (or more/less to taste)

Wash the peppers, grill them whole either on a grill or (like me) under the broiler until the skin is charred and starts showing “blisters”. Turn them to roast the other side and wait until the skin is charred too.

Put the still hot peppers in a well closed plastic bag or in a big pan, tightly covered with a lid, and leave overnight.

Proceed the same way with aubergines and chilies.

The following day, put on the gloves (otherwise your fingers and nails will be red for many days), peel the peppers and chilies, discarding the stems and removing all the seeds (the seeds you see on the photo come from the aubergine).

Peel the aubergines and remove the stalks.

Grind the aubergines, the peppers, the chilies and the garlic in a meat grinder or mix in a food processor. (Do not insist too much, the mixture should be slightly coarse).

Put everything into a pan, add half of the salt, all the oil and simmer on a very low heat for about two hours, constantly stirring (it burns easily) until there is no liquid separated from the ground vegetables. Taste after two hours and add more salt if needed. Simmer for 15 more minutes until the salt is completely dissolved.

Keep in a closed container or jars, in a colder part of the fridge for at least a month.

Pickled Yellow Mango

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Today I have a big honour and pleasure to guest post for my friend Charles from Five Euro Food. I strongly encourage you to pay him a visit and browse through his inspiring recipes from such different parts of the world as Sweden, Britain or Tunisia, watch his impressive cooking videos, admire his breathtaking photos from trips in France or simply say hello. I know Charles shares my passion for home preserves and September being the preserving month par excellence, I have decided to share with you and him my latest pickling experiment.

Even though I prepare some jams, most of my pantry jars contain savoury sauces, jellies and pickles. Mango is the main ingredient of several types of hot sauces and chutneys I prepare every year, but I haven’t tried pickling it until now. If, like me, you are a fan of Indian pickled mango, you will understand that this was the first recipe I started to look for. Unfortunately, Indian pickles are prepared with expensive green mangoes, and, most of all,  I found only short-term preserving recipes. I desperately wanted to use the easily available yellow mangoes and to keep the pickles in my pantry for at least a year, so I ventured into something completely new. I kept Indian flavours and combined them with the foolproof European long-term pickling method I use with cucumbers and peppers (click here to see my beloved Pickled Peppers or Hot Chili Peppers).

The experiment was risky, but proved worthwhile. Tasted after a couple of days (I had to make sure I present you an edible recipe!), the pickled mango has exceeded my expectations. I feared the excessive sweetness and softness of the fruit, but they were perfectly balanced by chili peppers, vinegar and powerful spices. The scarce amount of oil I poured on top of every jar tamed down the harshness of the vinegar and mellowed the flavours. I can already see these aromatic mangoes bringing sunshine to my winter meals.

TIP: If you don’t care for long-term pickles, you can skip the processing stage and keep these pickles in the fridge for at least several weeks.

If you don’t like hot flavours, skip the chili.

The riper the mangoes, the softer the pickles will be. Even those made with quite firm fruits were rather soft (nothing to do with crunchy vinegared cucumbers).

Preparation: 1 h + processing 

Ingredients (makes about 8 x 300ml/about 10 fl oz jars):

3 mangoes (not too ripe, still firm)

Marinade:

600 ml/about 2,5 cups vinegar (4,5%)

500 ml/about 2 cups water

150 g/2/3 cup caster sugar

3 flat tablespoons salt

3 teaspoons nigella seeds

2 teaspoons fenugreek seeds

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

2 teaspoons white mustard

8 garlic cloves

about 8 thin slivers fresh ginger

2 bird’s-eye-chilis (or any hot chili variety; the amount depends on how hot you want your pickles)

8 tablespoons good quality oil (I prefer olive oil)

Roast nigella, fenugreek, cumin and mustard seeds in a dry frying pan until they start to pop.

Put them aside.

Put on gloves. Cut the chilis into slices, discarding the seeds.

Peel the mangoes and cut them into more or less equal square pieces.

Fill empty, thoroughly washed and dried jars with mango pieces (no more than 2/3 jars’ height and not tightly packed), add garlic cloves (one per jar), toasted spices (a teaspoon per jar), two chili slices and one ginger sliver per jar.

Bring the marinade to the boil and let it simmer for a couple of minutes, stirring well until all the sugar is dissolved.

Fill the jars with hot – not boiling – marinade, leaving 1,5 cm from the rim.

Pour a tablespoon of oil in each jar. Close the jars and let them cool down.

/At this point you can either keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks or process the jars, as described below, and store them in your pantry for at least a year!/

Place the cool jars in a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to the boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 15 minutes (if you use bigger jars, increase the processing time; I usually process 500 ml jars for 20 minutes).
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the pickle and don’t forget to mark the date.

Wait at least a couple of weeks before opening the jars. As most pickles, these should improve with time.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Ketchup

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ketchuppp

Last weeks of summer are the best moment to make your own ketchup, but if you consider it an easily copied and uncomplicated sauce, think again. For long years all the home-made specimens I tasted or tried to make were only distant and ridiculous wannabes, not even meriting to be labelled as “ketchup”. Accepting the superiority of commercial brands was not easy to accept by a passionate preserver like me, so when two years ago I was offered a huge batch of untreated, ripe tomatoes, the old dream of making my own ketchup returned. I started searching on internet, leafing through my cookery books… Finally, thanks to Jeffrey Steingarten and his fascinating “The Man Who Ate Everything” (one of the best food-related books I have ever read), I discovered a marvellous sauce which beats every single commercial brand and which is no longer a home-made copy, but the best ketchup in the world.

I have slightly modified the ingredients’ amounts because the original recipe was intended for ten pounds of tomatoes. The process is not complicated itself, but a bit fussy and long. The initial volume of tomato pulp and juice will reduce up to 80%, so this sauce is quite costly, unless you cultivate tomatoes or have access to very cheap ones. The tomatoes must be very ripe and ideally untreated or almost untreated. If the tomatoes’ quality is good, the result is so excellent, you will find it difficult to believe you have made it on your own. The flavour balances between the concentration of a fresh ripe tomato taste and a subtler version of good commercial ketchup. Once you have tasted your first batch, you will realise this sauce is too good to be served with just any ordinary sausage or meat and definitely not to every guest…

TIP: If your tomatoes are far from being perfectly ripe or are rather watery, I strongly advise the Indian style Tomato Chutney. The recipe gives amazing results even with ordinary tomatoes.

Preparation: around 2 hours

Special equipment: a food mill (a sieve and a spoon may be used instead, but it takes much longer)

Ingredients: (for 1 kg tomatoes, but the volume will reduce up to 80%)

1 kg tomatoes (about 2 lbs)

1 garlic clove chopped

1/2 medium onion chopped

70 ml  (about 2,4 oz) cider vinegar (4,5%)

1 teaspoon peppercorns

1 teaspoon allspice berries

6 cm (about 2,4 in) cinnamon stick 

2 cloves

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon dried ginger

1/2 tablespoon salt

1 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar

Chop roughly the tomatoes.

Put them in a pan, cover, cook over high heat 5-10 minutes, stirring until the chunks give off their juice.

Strain the juice, pressing gently to the sieve, so that the liquid goes through, but not the tomato pulp.

Add garlic, onion, spices and vinegar (not sugar!) to the liquid obtained by straining.

Cook over moderate heat until it becomes slightly syrupy (it will take 40 – 60 minutes).

In the meantime sieve the pulp or put it through a food mill (make sure the seeds and skins do not get into the pulp). Put aside.

Strain the syrupy liquid discarding all the spices, onion, garlic etc.

Pour it over the pulp, add the sugar and stir well.

Cook until you obtain the desired ketchup consistency (keeping in mind that hot ketchup is a bit more liquid than when it cools down).

Adjust the taste if necessary (some tomatoes need more sugar or more salt) and heat until the sugar is dissolved.

You can mix the sauce in a food processor if you judge the texture not smooth enough.

/At this point you can (after the ketchup has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the ketchup, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the sauce and don’t forget to mark the date.

Hot Peach Sauce

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hotpeachsaucep

Every year, especially when the busiest pantry-filling season arrives, I try to limit jars-related posts in case some of you, my dear readers, become totally bored with the preserving subject. This Peach Sauce is one of these which didn’t fit into my last year’s “quota” and I promised myself I wouldn’t skip it this summer. My recent discoveries of Jed’s (Sportsglutton) fabulous Peachy Western Bacon Cheeseburger and Eva’s (Kitchen Inspirations) marvellous Peach Salsa reminded me to present you this simple, but highly palatable hot and sweet sauce.

As some of you know, I am addicted to the mixture of sweet and hot flavours. This is one of the reasons why, instead of standard jams, “fruit” shelves in my pantry are mainly filled with hot sauces, jellies, chutneys and similar products. Most of them go exceptionally well with both Western and Asian dishes, so I will not exaggerate if I say I do not imagine my life without them. Some taste better with seafood, some with poultry, grilled meat, skewers, toasts or simple sandwiches and other, like this peach sauce, enhance practically every savoury meal or snack.

Visually and technically this sauce is very close to Mango and Chili Sauce I wrote about  in June. It is equally beautiful, easy and quick to prepare. In spite of a slight tanginess, this sauce is more versatile, probably due to a subtler fruit aroma. If you feel tempted by this simple preserve, now is probably the best moment to profit from ripe, end-of-season peaches.

Whatever you do with peaches, do not throw out the peel. It can be used to prepare amazingly good Peach Peel Butter.

In case you want to experiment with fruits and chili, you might also like these:

Hot Strawberry Sauce

 Mango and Chili Sauce

Apricot and Chili Jelly

TIPS: Vinegar and sugar amounts depend on the fruits’ sweetness and the ones below are only an example. Some peaches require more sugar and some more vinegar. Always put down the exact amounts so that you know what you should modify next time you preserve.

The hotness of this sauce should be adapted to your own preferences and your resistance. The below chili amounts are only an example and depend also on the chili variety. Several tips for those who are not used to handle hot peppers:

1-Wear gloves while washing or cutting them !

2- Add your peppers gradually. They vary a lot in size, in hotness, and even the same variety can be completely different depending on the season and country of origin.  I always first mix peppers in a food processor and then add them gradually until the sauce acquires the desired taste.

3-Do not throw away the seeds if you want the sauce to be even hotter! (they are the hottest part of the peppers).

4- Keep in mind that the warm sauce is always hotter in taste than the cold one… (Wait for the sauce to cool down, taste it and you can reheat it once more adding more chilies if you want).

 

Preparation: around 30 minutes + a couple of hours for cooling + 20 minutes for processing

Ingredients: (about 3 x 200ml jars, but it depends on the fruits’ juiciness and ripeness)

1 kg (about 2 lbs) peaches 

1 T salt

200 g (1 cup) sugar

200 ml (6 3/4 oz) white wine or cider vinegar (mine was 4,5% acid)

preferably fresh, red or green hot peppers (I put 3 flat tablespoons of mixed tiny “bird’s eye” chili peppers and my sauce was really hot)

Cut off the peppers’ stems. Cut in half lengthwise and throw away the seeds (or not! if you want your sauce extra hot).

Mix the peppers in a food processor. Put aside.

Peel the peaches putting them in a big bowl or pan filled with boiling water.

After five minutes empty the bowl/pan and cover them with very cold water.

After 5 more minutes they can be peeled with fingers.

Do not throw away the peel! Make Peach Peel Butter (I promise it’s delicious).

Cut up the flesh. Mix the peaches in a food processor.

Place the mixed peaches, the sugar, the salt and the vinegar in a heavy bottom pan (shouldn’t be aluminium or copper, otherwise the vinegar will react with the metal).
Add the chilies gradually (for example starting with half of the amount). Cook for about 30 minutes. Taste and, optionally, add sugar /vinegar/peppers to adjust the taste.

/At this point you can (after the sauce has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year./

Pour the sauce, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 15 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the sauce and don’t forget to mark the date (do not forget to put down the exact amounts of every ingredient).

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year.

Kyuuri no Kyuuchan (Pickled Cucumber with Soy Sauce and Ginger)

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kyuurinop

Kyuri no kyu chan (きゅうりのキューちゃん) is brand name of extremely popular Japanese cucumber pickles. I’m always thrilled at the idea of reproducing a famous factory made product at home (I still keep on preparing my own Taberu Rayu, a Japanese thick chili oil), so when I saw the recipe on Hiroyuki’s blog on Japanese cooking, I knew I would try it soon. This first test was particularly exciting since I have never actually tasted the original pickles. I have no comparison, but Hiroyuki’s home version, slightly modified and prepared with big, long Western cucumbers turned out delicious.

Unlike Western strong pickles, Japanese style pickles (tsukemono) have a low acidity level, are more or less sweet (sometimes too sweet for my taste) and, unless store-bought, they belong to short-term preserves; as such they have to be kept in the fridge. The low acidity is sometimes a nice change from stronger European pickles which cannot be served at every meal. The sweetness level of many Japanese dishes is however often too high for me, so I have slightly reduced here the sugar amount. I have also used low-salt soy sauce (Hiroyuki said they were very salty). I was very happy with the result and found these pickles addictive. They were so delicate and versatile, I had them with every single meal (breakfast too). Moreover, I was astounded by the incredible taste of the pickled ginger strips. They were supposed to be only a part of cucumbers’ seasoning, but I enjoyed fishing them out and eating separately. My next batch will be bigger and I will certainly add more ginger. Thank you, Hiroyuki, for this excellent recipe!

If you find yourself with a big batch of cucumbers, I strongly recommend trying the incredibly easy and particularly flavoursome Cucumber Kimchi:

cucumberkimchip

or the Moomins’ Cucumber Salad I posted last year and have been putting into jars this weekend:

 

Preparation: 15 minutes + 12 hours

Ingredients:

2 Japanese cucumbers or 1 big long Western cucumber

1 tablespoon fresh ginger slivers

1 tablespoon sugar

100 ml (about 3,4 oz) low-salt soy sauce

50 ml (about 1,7 oz) rice vinegar

toasted sesame seeds

Cut the cucumbers into 1 cm (about 1/2 in) slices and if they are big, cut the slices in two.

Put the sugar, the soy sauce and the vinegar in a pan. Bring to the boil.

Add the cucumbers and the ginger strips. Let them simmer for 2 minutes.

Put aside and once cooled, refrigerate them overnight.

Serve sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds.

 

Pickled Peppers

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These are by far the most extraordinary pickles I know. I have been preparing them for long years and always in several big batches because they are also my family’s and friends’ favourite preserves. I already wrote about these pickles about two years ago, but at the time I didn’t have many visitors, so they remained unnoticed. When recently Jeno from Weeknite Meals commented on this old forgotten post I felt I had to dig it out and share with all my visiting and blogging friends (while making this weekend’s batch I also changed the previous awful photo). Thank you, Jeno, for drawing my attention to this post.

I can shamelessly affirm that these are the best pickled peppers I have ever tasted because I am not the author of the recipe. I got it from a friend, who, in her turn, got it from her boss, an excellent cook. I have never had a chance to taste her boss’s peppers, but I believed my friend when she said they were simply the best. She was right because I have never even tried to modify the original recipe. I have always put the same spices, the same proportion of vinegar and sugar and the same significant amount of garlic too. I also never skip the tablespoon of oil which smooths and “polishes” the flavours.

Every variety of pepper can be pickled this way and as you can see below the process is quite easy. The most important is that the peppers be fresh and ripe. The stronger their aroma the better the pickle will be. Of course red peppers are most beautiful. The jars keep for at least a year, but a three year old jar I recently found at the back of my pantry was still perfect. You should wait at least a couple of weeks before tasting, but it largely improves with time.

I pickle also Hot Chili Peppers, but in a slightly different way. Click here to see the recipe.

Preparation: 1 hour+processing

Ingredients:

1.5 kg (3,3 pounds) sweet peppers

about 20 peeled garlic cloves

up to 10 bay leaves

a couple of teaspoons mustard grains

a couple of teaspoons black pepper grains

2-3 teaspoons allspice grains

1 litre (about 4 cups) cider/white wine/other alcohol vinegar (mine was 4,5%, if you use a stronger one, add proportionally more water)

1.1 litre (about 4 cups and 3 oz) water

400 g (1 3/4 cups) caster sugar

3 tablespoons salt

olive oil (or other good quality oil)

Cut the peppers’ stems, discard all the seeds and white parts. Cut them into 2-3 cm pieces.

Fill in empty jars with pepper pieces (no more than 2/3 jars’ height), add 2 garlic cloves, 3 allspice berries, 3 pepper grains, 6 mustard grains and 1 bay leaf per every 500 ml jar.

Put the vinegar, the water, the sugar and the salt in a pan and let it boil a couple of minutes, stirring well until all the sugar is dissolved. Put aside.

Fill the jars with hot (no longer boiling!) vinegar mixture, leaving 1,5 cm from the rim. Pour a generous tablespoon of oil in each jar. Close the jars and let them cool down.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to the boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the pickle and don’t forget to mark the date.

Wait at least a couple of weeks before opening the jars. As do most pickles, this one improves with time. Pickled peppers are perfect with cold meats, in sandwiches, on toast, as a side dish…

 

Pickled Fish with Allspice

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pickledfishp

I used to think for long years that my mum was the only person in the world who pickled fish and I still haven’t met anyone who does it this way. Pickling was a way to preserve small, recently caught freshwater fish we weren’t able to eat quickly enough.  She always pickled whole fish, with bones, and removed only the head. Then, after a couple of weeks, the bones softened and often even the spinal bones were edible, just like in canned sardines. I have always considered this process somehow magical and loved the crunchy, transformed bones, not to mention the marinated, sour flesh. My mum prepared these pickles usually in the summer and hot, sunny days still seem the best moments to enjoy this refreshing snack or starter.

I don’t have access to freshly caught fish, so for long years I haven’t even tried to make this pickle on my own. To be frank I didn’t eat much fish and usually bought the easy to prepare big fish fillets. Then I found an excellent source of many relatively fresh fish varieties (which for a city far from the ocean and sea means very fresh) and began to buy them regularly. When I started to explore the Japanese cuisine, such delightful dishes as fish in tempura, salted dried fish or fish in nanban zuke marinade made me rediscover the joys of eating small fish. Incidentally it’s the Japanese hot nanban zuke marinade (inspired by the famous Mediterranean escabeche) that reminded me of my mum’s pickled fish and made me prepare it about a year ago for the first time in my life.  It was an indescribable pleasure, a couple of weeks afterwards, to open a jar of my own home pickled sardines.

After this first test, I have slightly modified my mum’s recipe, adding more vinegar (I prefer my pickles very strong) and deep-frying fish instead of shallow-frying. Since I am usually impatient to taste the food I prepare, I started to preserve fillets which are ready to be eaten in a couple of days. The only thing I have never modified are the spices. The mixture of bay leaves, mustard grains, peppercorns and allspice is simply perfect, the latter being particularly important here (hence its mention in the title). Garlic is not necessary, but advised especially for garlic fans. I think allspice is available in most parts of the world, but for those who have never used it, here is an old photo of allspice grains:

TIPS: This is a short-term pickle recipe and the jars should be kept in the fridge (they will keep for at least a month).  I sometimes process jars in hot water and keep them afterwards in my pantry for a couple of months, but I have no idea for how long it’s safe, so I don’t recommend it.

The fillets can be pickled without skin, but they taste much better with skin on.

If you use whole fish (without heads), you should wait a couple of weeks before tasting it.

Preparation: 30 – 40 minutes + a couple of days

Ingredients (fills one 1/2 litre jar):

8 small fish fillets (skin on) or six very small fishes, gutted and without heads

salt, pepper

1 heaped tablespoon flour

oil for deep-frying

Marinade:

375 ml (1 1/2 cup) vinegar (I used 4,5% cider vinegar)

125 ml (1/2 cup) water

1 heaped tablespoon sugar

1 flat teaspoon salt

6 pepper corns

4 grains allspice

1/2 teaspoon mustard grains

1 big bay leaf (or 2 – 3 small)

(2 cloves garlic)

Heat some deep-frying oil in a pan.

Wash the fish fillets (or the whole fish).

Pat them dry.

When the oil is hot enough, quickly season the fillets with salt and pepper.

Dust them lightly with flour and deep fry until slightly golden.

Remove excess oil by placing the fillets on paper towels.

Place the fish in a jar.

Bring all the marinade ingredients to boil.

Let it cool down and when the marinade is still hot (but not boiling) pour it over the fish.

Close the jar. Let it cool down and put into the fridge for a couple of days or weeks, if you prepare whole fish.

 

 

 

Shiso and Garlic Infused Soy Sauce

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garlicshisosoysaucep

Nami (Just One Cookbook) posted this recipe a long long time ago and I made it shortly afterwards. I loved this aromatic sauce at once and must have prepared it at least a dozen times since then. I intended to write about it much earlier, but somehow kept on forgetting to take a photo. I cannot say I’m happy about this one, but I didn’t want to wait any longer to share my impressions with you and to thank Nami for this surprising discovery, which has become a staple in my house.

As the title says, the recipe calls only for the garlic, the shiso and the soy sauce. They are simply assembled, put into a jar or a container and wait in the fridge for 24 hours. After a couple of days the leaves can be exchanged for fresh ones, the soy sauce added and thus this short-term preserve can be refilled and used for about three weeks. These few ingredients create a surprisingly good and complex sauce, which is a real delicacy for fans of garlic an shiso.

Shiso (紫蘇) or perilla, is widely used in both Korean and Japanese cuisines and you have probably seen it on my blog. I am mad for its herbaceous, slightly bitter flavour and its strong aroma and can no longer imagine many of  my meals without it. Here it has largely contributed to the complexity of flavours and gave this sauce a very original, fresh touch. This sauce is quite versatile. It can be used as a light dip for deep-fried dishes, added to fried rice, as a stir-fry seasoning and I even pour it on steamed rice instead of the standard soy sauce (I’m one of those Europeans who almost always add soy sauce to rice…).  Thank you, Nami, for this wonderful and easy recipe. (Click here to see Nami’s original post).

Shiso is in full season now, so in case you look for some other ideas, here are some of my previous recipes using this fabulous herb:

Tomato and Shiso Salad

Chicken and Shiso Balls

Chicken and Shiso Dumplings

Ume Shiso Chicken Skewers

Pork Rolls and Shiso in Tempura

Teriyaki Pork Rolls with Sweet Pepper, Shiso and Gochujang

TIP: Shiso is available in Japanese and Korean grocery shops, but I was surprised to find it in a Vietnamese shop and quickly noticed they have it almost every day in stock, so do check all the Asian grocers in your city.

Preparation: 5 minutes+at least 24 hours in the fridge

Ingredients:

10 big shiso leaves

3 cloves garlic, chopped

soy sauce (enough to cover the ingredients; I usually add 125 ml or 1/2 cup)

Put the garlic and the shiso leaves in a jar or a plastic container.

Cover with soy sauce. Close tightly and leave for at least 24 hours before tasting.

When the leaves become very dark, you can exchange them for new ones.

You can also keep on filling the container with more soy sauce.

Such a “renewal” can last for about three weeks.

 

 

 

Homemade Pickled Ginger (Gari ガリ)

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garip

A very funny thing happened to me about a week ago (my Asian friends will laugh their socks off now!). I went to my Asian grocery shop, took some shiso, some lemongrass, sweet thai basil and – at least that is what I thought I took – a package of galangal. When I came back home I looked closely at my galangal and it seemed a bit different… Then I read on the label it was actually young ginger. You might think I was angry, disappointed or both, but not at all! Not only was I happy to have young ginger, but actually instantly knew what to do with it.

As a notorious preserver and pickler I repeat my favourite recipes year by year, but also constantly look for new ideas, so when I saw Pickled Ginger in Street Café. Japan by Emi Kazuko, I made it straight away. The recipe called for fresh ginger and I didn’t understand at first that “fresh” meant young, cream-coloured bulbs without the hard brown skin. Needless to say, my experiment with “standard” ginger was a bit disappointing and when I finally realised after some web research what the  problem was, I assumed I will never be able to make this delicious pickle at home because  I had never seen young ginger anywhere in my city. Imagine my joy when only after a couple of weeks I realised I was actually able to buy it in my favourite Asian grocery shop!

I have slightly modified the original recipe . Moreover, apart from the short-term, “fridge” pickled ginger (will keep up to three months apparently), I have also prepared a second batch of long-term, Western-style processed pickles (the only difference is that I processed the jars in boiling water). I will be updating this post to report about the changes (if there are any) throughout the year. The pickling liquid in both jars has taken on a slightly pink hue (alas the ginger colour hasn’t almost changed at all, maybe because I used cider vinegar) and the fridge version turned up  exactly as I wanted it to be: refreshing, slightly crunchy, but still soft, not too sweet and without the “soapy” aftertaste I sometimes find in store-bought pickled ginger. It wasn’t as soft as the store bought pickled ginger, but it didn’t really bother me. Apparently young ginger is in season until the end of summer, so I hope I can prepare more of these pickles.

UPDATE: After several months the long-term pickled ginger (processed in boiling water and stored in my pantry) tastes even better!

TIP: If you plan long-term pickles, change slightly the amounts and do not add water (see the  ingredients’ list below)

Special equipment: a mandolin to slice the ginger 

Preparation: 40 – 50 minutes + at least 24 hours before tasting

Ingredients (yields at least 1 x 300 ml/ 10 oz  jar; if you prepare long-term pickles, prepare 1 more small jar just in case):

150 g fresh, young ginger, peeled

2 tablespoons sea salt

125 ml (1/2 cup) rice vinegar (I have used 4,5 % cider vinegar, simply because I have several bottles in stock; use 250 ml/1 cup vinegar if you prepare long-term pickles)

60 ml (about 1/4 cup) water (for long-term pickles I have skipped water)

60 ml (about 1/4 cup) white sugar (for long-term pickles I used 90 ml/ about 0,4 cup sugar)

1 teaspoon salt

Cut up the ginger into  knobs and then, using a mandolin, cut each knob lengthwise into paper-thin slices (lengthwise direction is very important!).

Rub the ginger with salt and put aside for 3 hours (the ginger will soften).

Rinse the ginger, pat dry and put into a jar.

Bring to boil the vinegar, the sugar, the salt and the water, if you prepare short-term pickles.

Pour the hot (not boiling) mixture over the ginger, close the jar.

Leave it to cool down and then refrigerate for at least 24 hours.

It can stay in the fridge for three months.

If you prepare long-term pickles, place the cooled jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 15 minutes.

Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the pickle and don’t forget to mark the date.

These will keep for at least a year in your pantry. I will update this post saying if the ginger taste changes.

NOTE (concerns only the long-term pickles): For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html

Mango and Chili Sauce

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I am impatiently waiting for the peak preserving season which starts some time next month. In the meantime, since mangoes seem to be already in season in many parts of the world, last weekend I was very glad to be able to fill this year’s first jars with my beloved hot mango sauce. I have posted this recipe a long time ago, when I didn’t know most of my present web friends and I thought it would be such a pity if one of my most often prepared and served sauces remained forgotten or unnoticed. For me it’s such an extraordinary preserve, I think it may even merit to be posted regularly once a year.

Why do I find this sauce so exceptional? First of all, because I love mango and chili combination. Secondly, because of its simplicity. In fact, I haven’t followed any precise instructions and the recipe is the result of my experiments with chili, mango and obligatory preserving agents (vinegar and sugar). Thanks to the short ingredients list, this sauce is an extremely versatile seasoning or dip. You can serve it with roasts, stir fries, sandwiches, noodles, rice bowls,snacks…. Apart from those who hate hot and sweet combination, everyone seems to enjoy this sauce (this is one of my biggest “jar as a present” hits). Last but not least, mango season is quite long and since they are imported from different parts of the world they are available (at least in Europe) all year round, so this sauce can be prepared at practically any time of the year.

If you still hesitate wondering how you will use this sauce, here are some suggestions:

-Stir-fried asparagus, chicken and cashew nuts

-Sesame Coated Tuna Nuggets

-Japanese Chicken and Leek Skewers (Negima)

-Asparagus Teriyaki Pork Rolls

-Okra Teriyaki Pork Rolls

-Sesame Coated Chicken Nuggets

-Chicken Karaage

TIPS: The vinegar and sugar amounts depend on the mango sweetness and the ones below are only an example. Some mangoes require more sugar and some more vinegar. Always put down the exact amounts so that you know what you should modify next time you preserve it.

The hotness of this sauce should be adapted to your own preferences and your resistance. The below chili amounts are only an example and depend also on the chili variety. Several tips for those who are not used to handle hot peppers:

1-Wear gloves while washing or cutting them !

2- Add your peppers gradually. They vary a lot in size, in hotness, and even the same variety can be completely different depending on the season and country of origin.  I always first mix peppers in a food processor and then add them gradually until the sauce acquires the desired taste.

3-Do not throw away the seeds if you want the sauce to be even hotter! (they are the hottest part of the peppers).

4- Keep in mind that the warm sauce is always hotter in taste than the cold one… (Wait for the sauce to cool down, taste it and you can reheat it once more adding more chilies if you want).

Preparation: around 30 minutes + a couple of hours for cooling + 20 minutes for processing

Ingredients: (2 mangoes will yield around 3-4 200ml jars, but it depends on the fruits’ juiciness and ripeness)

2 mangoes

1 T salt

200 g (1 cup) sugar

200 ml (6 3/4 oz) white wine or cider vinegar (mine was 4,5% acid)

preferably fresh, red or green hot peppers (I put 3 flat tablespoons of mixed tiny “bird’s eye” chili peppers and my sauce was really hot)

Cut off the peppers’ stems. Cut in half lengthwise and throw away the seeds (or not! if you want your sauce extra hot).

Mix the peppers in a food processor. Put aside.

Peel the mangoes, cut up the flesh. Mix the mangoes in a food processor.

Place the mixed mangoes, the sugar, the salt and the vinegar in a heavy bottom pan (shouldn’t be aluminium or copper, otherwise the vinegar will react with the metal).
Add the chilies gradually (for example starting with half of the amount). Cook for around 30 minutes. Taste and, optionally, add sugar /vinegar/peppers to adjust the taste.

/At this point you can (after the sauce has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the sauce, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the sauce and don’t forget to mark the date (do not forget to put down the exact amounts of every ingredient you used).

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year.

Thick and Crunchy Japanese Chili Oil and Sauce (Taberu rayu)

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I don’t have the habit of praising factory-made sauces or condiments, but when I discovered taberu rayu, I have instantly fallen in love. This Japanese condiment is sold in tiny jars filled half with chili oil, half with a crunchy mixture of fried garlic, sesame seeds and chili and it goes well with almost every dish I tested (not only Japanese). Since me and my husband are both addicted to this rather expensive sauce, I thought I should try reproducing it at home. I had no idea what to start with, so I turned for help to Robert-Gilles, my blogging friend from Shizuoka (Shizuoka Gourmet). Robert-Gilles has already saved me from many culinary troubles (daikon leaves rice topping is one of the best examples) and here he was once more extremely kind, generous and helpful. In short, as if by magic, the taberu rayu recipe appeared the following day on his blog!

As Robert-Gilles has written here, taberu rayu (食べるラー油) appeared in 2009 in Okinawa as a modified version of chili oil, originating from China. The name means literally “chili oil for eating” probably because, as I have mentioned above, a part of the condiment is solid. My Japanese grocers sell two types of taberu rayu: one contains dried garlic and the other both dried garlic and dried shrimp. Since I find the former version more versatile, I have left out the shrimp in this first experiment. The recipe proved quite easy (although I did burn the first batch of fried garlic…), rather quick and the result was surprisingly close to the “original” condiment. Home-made taberu rayu is hot and slightly sweet. It has a pleasant crunch due to the sesame seeds and garlic, combined with the stickiness of gochujang (Korean chili paste) and a wonderful bright red colour. Maybe because it lacks artificial after-taste, I find it even more addictive than the factory-made version. Thank you so much, Robert-Gilles, for this extraordinary recipe and for your kind help!

TIP: If you don’t find gochujang (Korean chili paste), you will find a recipe also on Shizuoka Gourmet blog. You can substitute it here with a bigger amount of chili flakes and a bit more sugar, but the texture will be different.

Preparation: 30-40 minutes

Ingredients (fills a 200 ml jar):

100 ml canola oil (or another oil with a neutral taste)

50 ml sesame oil

1 dried chili

3 thick slices of fresh ginger

10 cm piece of leek

2 tablespoons gochujang (Korean chili paste)

2 heaped tablespoons Korean chili powder (or half of it if you don’t like very hot seasonings)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar (I used agave syrup)

2 tablespoons white sesame seeds

(about 2 tablespoons dried shrimps, chopped)

Fried garlic:

deep-frying oil

5 big garlic cloves, finely chopped (or roughly mixed in a food processor)

Fried onion:

deep-frying oil

1/2 onion,  finely chopped (or roughly mixed in a food processor)

First prepare fried onion and fried garlic.

Heat some oil in a small pan and when it’s hot enough to fry the garlic (a bit of garlic thrown into the oil will stay at the surface, the oil will start bubbling around and instantly frying it), throw delicately the chopped garlic and take out as soon as it is slightly golden. It will take about one minute or less. Drain the excess oil on paper towel and put aside.

Filter the oil and fry the onion in the same way. It will take more time (a couple of minutes). Drain the excess oil on paper towel and put aside.

In a metal bowl combine the sesame seeds, (the shrimp), the chili powder and 1 tablespoon sesame oil.

Pour the remaining sesame oil and canola oil into a pan. Add the ginger, the leek and one dried chili.

Fry at low heat for a couple of minutes.

Take out the vegetables and heat the oils until they start smoking.

At this point pour slowly, stirring, the hot oils into the sesame and chili paste.

Add the remaining ingredients, stir well, put into a jar and keep for one month at room temperature.

 

 

Thick and Crunchy Japanese Chili Sauce on Punk Domestics

Easy Cucumber Kimchi (Oi Kimchi)

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cucumberkimchipIt’s kimchi time again! After white radish (daikon) kimchi and the simplified version of Chinese/Napa cabbage kimchi, I would like to present you the most extraordinary experiment in this field, namely cucumber kimchi. Even though not in its best season now, cucumber is available all year round and brings a pleasant freshness to my meals when I’m fed up with carrots, potatoes, cabbage and other sad Winter vegetables. Combined with hot seasoning and fermented, it gains in precious nutrients, flavour complexity, colours and becomes even more welcome on cold, dark days.

First of all I must thank Charles from Five Euro Food because without his enthusiastic comments I even wouldn’t know cucumber kimchi existed and certainly wouldn’t prepare it so quickly. Charles has never made it himself, but my recipe quest wasn’t long. I found what I was looking for at Eating and Living blog, my main source of Korean recipes. I was even lucky to stumble upon a simplified cucumber kimchi recipe (Oi Kimchi), which was perfect to start with. Traditionally, in Oi Sobagi Kimchi, cucumbers are cut into big chunks, then, with half-length slits, “pockets” are formed and stuffed with kimchi seasoning. Here cucumber is simply cut up into bite-sized pieces and combined with the seasoning. (For those who want to know more about kimchi, I have written about it here and here.)

I have no idea what the traditional stuffed cucumber kimchi tastes like, but this version proved so excellent I can say without any doubts this is by far my favourite kimchi. I adore it for its freshness, crunchiness, lightness and for the fact that it is perfect at every stage of fermentation. First the cucumber’s freshness is dominating, then it reminds me of the delicate Japanese pickles and then, when it matures, the taste is is very close to the Central and Eastern European cucumbers fermented in brine. I cannot even imagine how terrific this kimchi will be when made with seasonal Summer cucumbers. Thank you, Hyosun, for one more wonderful recipe and thank you, Charles, for this discovery!

Even though I haven’t changed the original recipe, you may want to click here to see very helpful step-by-step photos.

Preparation: 45 minutes + min. 20-30 minutes fermentation

Ingredients:

1 long dark green cucumber 
1 tablespoon coarse salt

1 teaspoon garlic (grated or crushed)

1/4 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

2 tablespoons Korean chili flakes

1 teaspoon white sesame seeds

1 tablespoon fish sauce

3 green onion stalks, cut into 2 cm pieces

Cut the cucumber into 3 cm chunks and then cut them into 8 strips lengthwise.

Sprinkle the cucumber pieces with salt and leave them for 30 minutes.

Drain the cucumber, but do not rinse it.

Add all the seasoning ingredients and place the cucumbers in an airtight container.

Wait for 20-30 minutes and serve or leave for two days to ferment in room temperature and then put into the fridge for several days.

Exceptionally this kimchi is as good freshly made as well as after a couple of days.

I even liked it after one week.

 

Mak Kimchi, or Easy Kimchi

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makkimchip

Some of you probably remember Cubed Radish Kimchi (Kkakdugi 깍두기) I have written about a couple of weeks ago. This famous dish was easy, absolutely delicious and made me seriously hooked on the magic world of Korean fermentation. The Mak Kimchi you see above is another flavoursome experiment and certainly not the last one in my kimchi adventures.

For those who have never heard of kimchi, a quick reminder of what I have written in December. Kimchi (김치) is a preparation of fermented vegetables with dried chili peppers and other seasonings and has a very long history. According to Wikipedia the oldest references to kimchi go back as far as 3000 years ago. Koreans didn’t know chili peppers until the XVIth century, so the beautiful red colour and fiery taste are quite recent. (In fact, there exists also a “white” kimchi version, without chili, originating from the Northern Korea. ) Apart from the chili, garlic, ginger and scallions are the most frequent ingredients of the most popular, fiery kimchi. It also always contains a fermentation “enhancer” such as fish sauce, raw shrimp, raw oysters or fermented fish.

Kimchi has a very powerful smell, but once you taste it and love it, the smell will never be associated with anything unpleasant. It is spicy, hot, sour and, like most fermented vegetables, very healthy. High in fiber, low in calories and fat, it is packed with vitamin C (thanks to the fermentation) and carotene. It also contains several other vitamins, helps digestion, is said to prevent certain cancers… In short: it’s a wonder food. Its importance in the Korean cuisine cannot be compared to anything in any European food culture I know. Apart from being served as a side dish, kimchi is used in fried rice, stew and soups. The only Korean cookery book I have contains a whole chapter dedicated to kimchi and many Korean families have special kimchi refrigerators.

Chinese (Napa) Cabbage is the most popular kimchi vegetable and the most versatile, since it is  often added to hot dishes (fried rice, soups, noodles). I have once tried making it, but it was very disappointing and the procedure was more complicated than in the case of Radish Kimchi. I thought I would never make cabbage kimchi again, but thanks to Shu Han (from Mummy, I can cook!) I have discovered the existence of  “mak kimchi”, meaning “easy kimchi” in Korean. While the classical cabbage kimchi (poggi kimchi) consists in seasoning and fermenting halved cabbages, mak kimchi is cut into small pieces before the fermentation process. This small step makes the seasonings’ distribution easier and accelerates the preparation process.

I have slightly modified Shu Han’s recipe, mainly changing the ingredients’ amounts and omitting the carrot I simply didn’t have.  Nevertheless my three days old mak kimchi is already incredibly good, but since I prefer it more “mature” and stronger, it will be more to my taste in a a week’s time or so. Thank you, Shu Han for giving me this wonderful idea and for the easy, foolproof recipe! (Click here to see Shu Han’s original recipe with making-of photos.)

TIP: Wear gloves if you manipulate kimchi with your hands (apart from the smelly side there is lots of chili in it)

Preparation: 1 hour + minimum 2 days

Ingredients:

1 small Chinese (Napa) cabbage (500 g)

about 4 tablespoons coarse salt

2 heaped tablespoons Korean chili powder

1 tablespoon sugar (or 1/3 grated pear)

1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

2 scallions stalks, cut into 2 cm pieces

1 garlic clove, grated

2  tablespoons fish sauce

2 flat tablespoons sweet (glutinous) rice flour

50 ml water

(1 small carrot, grated or julienned)

Prepare the rice paste combining the rice flour with about 50 ml water. Let the mixture simmer until it thickens.

Put aside.

Cut up the cabbage into 3 cm more or less square pieces.

Sprinkle it with salt and leave for at least two hours. The cabbage will soften and let release some water.

Drain the cabbage and wash it.

Put it into a big container (with a lid) and combine well with the remaining ingredients and the rice paste.

Taste and if you think it’s not salty enough, add some fish sauce. (It should be only a bit too salty).

Cover with the lid, press with your hands (wear gloves!) to remove the air from the cabbage and leave for 2 days to ferment in room temperature.

Put into the fridge after two days. In general it gets stronger and more acid every day.

You can refrigerate it only to make it cold and eat it straight away or you can wait several days or weeks to see how the flavours change and at which stage you prefer it.

You can keep mak kimchi in the fridge for several weeks. It is excellent added to rice dishes and soups (I hope posting some recipes very soon).

 

 

 

Kkakdugi (깍두기), or Cubed Radish Kimchi

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daikonkimchip

Seeing radish kimchi at Hyosun Ro’s Eating and Living and then at Hiroyuki’s Blog on Japanese Cooking I felt it was high time I embarked on a fermenting adventure. Kimchi (김치) is the real monument of the Korean cuisine. It is a preparation of fermented vegetables – most often Napa/Chinese cabbage or white radish – with dried chili peppers and other seasonings. Kimchi is certainly one of the oldest dishes in the world, since (according to Wikipedia) the oldest references to it go back as far as 3000 years ago. Koreans didn’t know chili peppers until the XVIth century, so the beautiful red colour and fiery taste are quite recent. (In fact, there exists also a “white” kimchi version, without chili, originary from the Northern Korea. ) Apart from the chili, garlic, ginger and scallions are the most frequent ingredients of the most popular, fiery kimchi. It also always contains a fermentation “enhancer” such as fish sauce, raw shrimp, raw oysters or fermented fish.

To those who haven’t tasted it, kimchi might not sound particularly appealing, especially given its powerful smell. For me well-made kimchi is a pure delight. It is spicy, hot, sour and, like most fermented vegetables, very healthy. High in fiber, low in calories and fat, it is packed with vitamin C (thanks to the fermentation) and carotene. It also contains several other vitamins, helps digestion, is said to prevent certain cancers… In short: it’s a wonder food. Its importance in the Korean cuisine cannot be compared to anything in any European food culture I know. Apart from being served as a side dish, kimchi is used in fried rice, stew and soups. The only Korean cookery book I have contains a whole chapter dedicated to kimchi and many Korean families have special kimchi refrigerators.

I first tasted kimchi a couple of years ago in a Korean restaurant, then at my Korean neighbours’ house (the latter was of course beyond compare) and then tried making my own. The preparation was easy, but I was disappointed with the result. This experience has put me off making kimchi for two years. Last week, however, I decided I had to make at least one more attempt. I happened to have almost all the required ingredients from Hyosun Ro’s recipe, so I have followed closely her instructions and I can proudly say my kimchi is quite palatable. I panicked a little when after two days’ fermentation my kimchi was very bitter, but, strangely, leaving it to ferment for one more day resolved the problem! Thank you, Hyosun Ro, for this easy and efficient recipe! I feel now ready to carry on further kimchi experiments.

TIPS: Hyosun Ro’s recipe calls for raw shrimp as the fermentation enhancer, but since I can only get frozen shrimp, I thought it would be safer to replace it with additional fish sauce. The below recipe is adapted to my small batch (I was worried to make a bigger one for the first time), so if you want to see the original go to Eating and Living blog.

Wear gloves if you manipulate kimchi with your hands (apart from the smelly side there is lots of chili in it)

If you taste your kimchi and it seems very bitter, leave it to ferment for additional 24 hours. I did it and miraculously the bitterness disappeared!

Preparation: 1 hour + min. 2 days, but 2 weeks are optimal; the kimchi you see above was one week old and improved every day

Ingredients (I adapted the ingredients to my very small “test” batch):

500 g white radish (daikon) cut into cubes

3 heaped tablespoons Korean dried chili (my kimchi wasn’t very hot, just hot)

1 flat teaspoon grated or crushed garlic

1/2 flat teaspoon grated fresh ginger

chopped scallions (I used European chives instead)

salt (I used about 3 tablespoons)

1/2 teaspoon glutinous rice flour

4 tablespoons fish sauce or (as advised by Hyosun Ro):

2 tablespoons finely minced saeujeot (salted shrimp)

1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 raw shrimp (ground)

Prepare the rice paste combining the rice flour with about 20 ml water. Let the mixture simmer until it thickens.

Sprinkle the radish cubes with salt and leave them for 30-40 minutes. They will soften and let release some water.

Drain them, but do not wash.

Put the radishes into a big container (with a lid) and combine well with the remaining ingredients.

Taste and if you think it’s not salty enough, add some fish sauce (Hyosun Ro says it should be just a bit too salty).

Cover with the lid, press with your hands (wear gloves!) to remove the air from between the radish cubes and leave for 2 days to ferment in room temperature.

Put into the fridge after two days or more. Mine tasted better (and lost its bitterness) after the third day of fermentation at room temperature. In general it gets stronger and more acid every day.

You can refrigerate it only to make it cold and eat it straight away or you can wait several days or weeks to see how the flavours change and at which stage you prefer it (Hyosun Ro says it requires two weeks to develop the best flavours).

You can keep kimchi in the fridge for several weeks.

 

Onion Confit with Fig and Port

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The busiest pickling and jam-making months are behind. However, I keep on making Apple and Pear Sauces, preserving exotic fruits (Mango Chutney or Hot Mango Sauce) and I have just started to prepare this year’s batches of onion confit. If you have ever been to a French deli, you have probably seen expensive small jars of “confit d’oignon”, seasoned with different alcohols and/or dried fruit. Confit is a long simmered, slightly sweet onion jam. It is typically served warm with foie gras (fat duck’s liver), but it is also excellent with black pudding, grilled or roast pork, chicken and duck. It works perfectly well also as a tart filling or even as a simple toast spread.

Since I have always found onion confit prices excessive and totally unfounded (onion being one of the cheapest and easiest stored basic European vegetable), I decided to experiment on my own. I quickly realised how cheap and easy the whole process was, even though it required several hours of long simmering. The fig and port version is by far my favourite, but even when both are skipped, the confit is excellent. I think a jar of confit is a very good idea for a home-made, edible Christmas present and an original alternative to flowers or chocolates when one is invited to someone’s house.

Onion confit can be made with any onion variety. I usually go for the cheapest ones, since they “melt” a lot during the long simmering process.

TIP: Onion confit can be either processed and preserved in the pantry or stored in the fridge for one or two weeks. If you don not intend to process it, reduce the vinegar and sugar amounts. Here they act as preserving agents, but if the jam is eaten quickly, their addition is merely a question of taste balance.

Preparation: 3-5 hours (it can be made in two days)

Ingredients (yield depends much on the onions and preferred consistency, but don’t count on more than 2x 150 ml jars):

1 kg onions, peeled and sliced

4 dried figs

50g brown cane sugar

1 tablespoon salt

soy sauce (to taste) or more salt

100 ml ruby port wine

100 ml white wine vinegar 4,5%

2 tablespoons good quality oil

(ground pepper)

Heat the oil in a pan, add the onions and let them soften a bit on a very low heat (you can put the lid on the pan, but remember to stir very often).

After about 10 minutes add the soy sauce, the sugar, finely chopped figs and the vinegar.

Let the whole mixture simmer on a very low heat for about an hour, frequently stirring.

Add the port wine.

Cover the onions with a lid, let them simmer for at least 2 more hours, stirring.

Adjust the taste, adding more vinegar or salt or sugar and let the confit simmer uncovered until the liquids evaporate and it takes a consistency of a jam.

/At this point you can (after the confit has cooled down) keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for about a year/

Pour the confit, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the confit and don’t forget to mark the date.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, this is not a USDA tested recipe and therefore not recommended for canning by their standards.

 

Green Tomato and Chili Jelly

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I have just spent another weekend making King of the Pippins Sauce (they have finally appeared on my market) and preserving green tomatoes, which will soon be over. Contrary to the Green Tomato Salad, this recipe is, I can proudly say, my own invention. Of course it is not very original since I based it on Hot Pepper Jelly, modifying the proportions, but aiming at a similar blend of sweet and hot, my favourite flavours’ combination. I first made it as an experiment with a couple of leftover green tomatoes, but the result was so good, I have been preparing this jelly for three years now. In spite of being hot, this jelly has a very subtle, slightly refreshing taste. It is not as versatile as the Pepper Jelly. It goes well also on toast, with grilled or stir-fried meat, fish, vegetables, but I avoid pairing it with curry, red tomato sauce, spicy dishes or simply with very powerful flavours.

The process is very easy. You simply mix the tomatoes and the chillies in a food processor, then cook it with the remaining ingredients, add the pectin and put into jars.

Preparation: 45 minutes + hot water bath or another processing method

Ingredients:

1 kg green tomatoes

red or green chili peppers (here everything depends on how hot you want it to be; I usually add 10 bird’s-eye-chili peppers)

1 tablespoon salt

300 g white sugar

100 ml vinegar 4,5% acidity (or less if using stronger vinegar)

60 g pectin in powder

Wash the tomatoes and the peppers.

Cut off the stems.

Put both in a food processor and mix well.

Put into a pan, add the vinegar, the sugar and the salt and boil on medium heat for about 20 minutes.

Add the pectin, stir well and let the jelly simmer for 15 more minutes.

/At this point you can (after the chutney has cooled down) either freeze it or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the chutney, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the chutney and don’t forget to mark the date.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Green, Unripe Tomato Salad

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October seems to be the best moment to look for (or ask for) green tomatoes, at least on my market. I don’t talk about the always-green variety which is very sweet and often striped (I think it’s called sometimes “zebra”). What I mean are completely unripe tomatoes. They are acid, already have a pleasant aroma, but their flavour is still very shy. I started to preserve green tomatoes a couple of years ago when I realised how cheap they were (farmers prefer probably to get rid of the unripe tomatoes very quickly and sell them for almost nothing) and when I decided to recreate the green tomato salad I used to like as a child. Since I didn’t know anyone who did it at home, I looked for recipes on internet and modifying them throughout the years, adding carrots and peppers, I have adapted them to my own taste.

Green tomato salad is very easy to make and its flavour is surprisingly delicate, compared to other vinegared preserves. It never fails to impress those who taste it for the first time, since most people expect it very sour and harsh. The onions make the vinegar brine mellower, the carrots give a crunchy side and together with the peppers, they make the jars look merrier. If you remember the Moomins’ Cucumber Salad, the process of making this one is very similar. As you see on the photo above, green tomatoes quickly become yellowish, but both carrots and red peppers keep their bright colours.

This salad is a great side dish and an excellent alternative to cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce in sandwiches. It is best when served chilled.

Preparation: about 1 hour + hot water bath or another processing method

Ingredients:

1 1/2 kg green tomatoes

2 big carrots

2 big red bell peppers

300 g onions

1 liter vinegar 4,5%

600 ml water

200 g sugar

4 tablespoons salt

2 tablespoons mustard grains

2 tablespoons pepper corns

2-3 bay leaves

Slice the tomatoes and the onions.

Cut the red peppers in thin strips.

Slice the carrots finely (the best would be to use a mandolin).

Put the vinegar, the water, the sugar and the salt in a pan. Bring to boil and let it on medium heat for 10 minutes.

Pack the vegetables tightly in jars, distributing evenly the pepper corns, the mustard grains and the bits of bay leaves.

Fill the jars until about 80% of the jars’ height.

Pour the hot (not boiling) vinegar mixture over the vegetables, leaving about 2,5 cm space below the lid.

Cover with lids and let the jars cool. (You can leave them overnight).

/At this point you can (after the jars have cooled down)  either keep them in the fridge for a couple of weeks or process as described below and store in your pantry for at least a year!/

Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.

Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the salad and don’t forget to mark the date.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Green Tomato Pickled Salad on Punk Domestics

Pickled Hot Chili Peppers

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Pickled Sweet Peppers I have been doing for years are one of my favourite preserves and definitely the ones I make in the biggest batches. I have already based my Pepper and Allspice Spread on this recipe and, logically, when I wanted to pickle hot peppers for the first time, I used almost exactly the same method, skipping only allspice and bay leaf, which seemed not the best company for hot peppers. I processed my experimental jars several weeks ago and today’s first tasting proved very satisfactory. The balance between the vinegar, the sugar, the spices and the hotness of the peppers is perfect for me. Needless to say, I will buy more hot peppers and  make a bigger batch very soon.

I used  the Turkish “aci sivri” variety. They were long, light green and moderately hot. Of course, any hot pepper variety will work here and if you are lucky enough to get hold of jalapeños, I am sure they will be perfect pickled this way.

Note: do not forget to put on the gloves before you start manipulating the peppers! If you forget it and touch your nose or eyes, you will suffer for several hours. Your hands might also get very itchy!

Preparation: 1 hour + processing

Ingredients:

1,5 – 2 kg hot peppers

about 20 peeled garlic cloves

a couple of teaspoons mustard grains

a couple of teaspoons black pepper grains

1 litre cider/white wine/other alcohol vinegar (mine was 4,5%, if you use a stronger one, add proportionally more water)

1.1 litre water

400g caster sugar

3 T salt

olive oil (or other good quality oil)

Put on the gloves! Cut the peppers’ stems and cut them into 2-3 cm pieces. (You can take the seeds away, but I left them on purpose: I prefer my pickles hotter).

Fill in empty jars with pepper pieces (no more than 2/3 jars’ height), add 2 garlic cloves, 3 pepper grains and half a teaspoon mustard grains per every 500 ml jar.

Put the vinegar, the water, the sugar and the salt in a pan and let it boil a couple of minutes, stirring well until all the sugar is dissolved. Put aside.

Fill the jars with hot – not boiling – vinegar mixture, leaving 1,5 cm from the rim. Pour a generous tablespoon of oil in each jar. Close the jars and let them cool down.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the pickle and don’t forget to mark the date.

Wait at least a couple of weeks before opening the jars. As do most pickles, this one improves with time.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Pickled Hot Chili Peppers on Punk Domestics

Moomins’ Cucumber Salad

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Moomins, aka Moomin trolls, are chubby characters invented by the Finnish-Swedish writer Tove Janssen who depicted their adventures in a series of sparingly illustrated books I used to devour in my early teens. The books were originally written in Swedish and then became famous all around the world, in as different countries as Germany and Japan, where they were extremely popular. I remember I immensely enjoyed finding myself plunged in the peaceful, simple Moomin world, where everyone was kind and even the scariest characters end up being nice… I got really addicted to Moomins when, in the 90s, the tv started to broadcast a full-coloured Japanese Moomin cartoon. Here is the English theme song, just to give you an idea of what Moomins’ world looks like:

Afterwards I learnt that several different cartoons had been produced not only in Japan, and some as early as in the 60s! I have to confess even as an adult I feel nostalgic about Moomins. Once, I have even given CG from Cooking Gallery an idea to put them into one of her extraordinary charaben (character bento boxes). Imagine my joy when I saw she actually made perfect, beautiful, edible Moomin family! Click here to see what I of course consider as the most beautiful of CG’s bento boxes.

Moomins’ adventures haven’t been developped for years, so imagine my emotion when I learnt the existence of the Moomins Cookbook! Luckily, it has already been translated into English, otherwise I would certainly order it in Swedish (or Finnish) and would insist on reading it with a dictionary in one hand! As its title suggests (Moomins Coookbook. An Introduction to Finnish Cuisine), this illustrated book contains Finnish recipes. However, I must admit I haven’t ordered it with intention of its practical use, but merely to purchase a new Moomin item.

Imagine how excited I was to discover there not only an ideal way to pickle the cucumbers I was offered at the farmers’ market, but to realise that the result went far beyond what I had hoped for. The salad is extremely flavoursome, it can be served as a side dish or drained and put into sandwiches and I recommend it to everyone, not only Moomins’ fans. However, I admit that labeling the jars as “Moomins’ Salad” is a particularly thrilling experience for someone who feels nostalgic for these chubby characters.

The recipe calls for sliced gherkins, but long cucumbers were a perfect substitute. I have only slightly modified it, mainly reducing the sugar content, so if you prefer sweeter pickles, add 320 g sugar. I didn’t have fresh black currant leaves, have put dried ones instead, but I think they don’t change the taste at all, so I shall skip them next time. The salad tastes lovely without them too!

(This salad can of course be made as a short-term pickle and kept in the fridge. It is ready after a couple of days.)

Preparation: 1 hour + hot water bath processing (or another method)

Ingredients (I have obtained 5 x 400 ml jars):

1 kg gherkins or cucumbers

1 big carrot

1 tablespoon allspice berries

1 tablespoon peppercorns

1 tablespoon mustard seeds

(1 tablespoon cloves which I have skipped, since I am not a big fan of cloves in pickles)

4 garlic cloves (peeled and cut in two)

(1 tablespoon grated horseradish, which is optional in the recipe and which I didn’t have)

dill flowers, stems (dried or fresh) or seeds

(blackcurrant leaves (I used dried, but they don’t really change the taste so either use fresh ones or skip them))

1 liter wine or cider vinegar (4,5%)

200 g sugar

3 tablespoons salt

Wash and scrub the gherkins. If using big long cucumbers you can peel them if the skin is very tough or only one row in two (as I did) or not at all (the pickles will be crunchier). Slice the cucumbers or gherkins finely with a knife or with a mandolin.

Peel the carrot and slice it finely too.

Pack the sliced vegetables tightly into the jars, distributing the spices and garlic evenly between the layers (one garlic clove for one jar). Finish the layering at the 3/4 of the jars’ height.

Combine the vinegar, the salt and the sugar. Bring to boil, stirring.

Pour the hot vinegar into the jars (leave 1,5 cm under the rim) and close them.

/At this point you can (after the jars have cooled down)  either keep them in the fridge for a couple of weeks or process as described below and store in your pantry for at least a year!/

Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.

Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the salad and don’t forget to mark the date.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Moomins' Cucumber Salad on Punk Domestics

Mango Chutney with Garam Masala

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Long before I started to make my own savoury preserves, mango had always been my favourite in Indian hot chutneys and fiery mango sauce served in Indian restaurants. After my three years’ experience of Hot Mango Sauce and Mango Chutney preserving, this is still my favourite fruit to pair with spices and chillies. Mango is versatile, makes thick sauces and doesn’t have any acidity, so the preserves don’t require lots of sugar. There is also something I love about mangoes: they are available most of the year, since they are imported from different parts of the world.

According to most bloggers who have origins or family in the mango-growing countries neither the smell nor the taste of the mangoes available in Europe can be compared to the real, fresh mangoes’ flavour and aroma. I was always wondering what they meant. Finally, I had a chance to experience the difference and realise what the real mango meant the day when my husband was offered a box of these African beauties, coming straight from mango trees in Mali:

And here is a mango with a standard-sized lime to show you how big they were:

Not only were they huge, chubby, with a funny shape, but most of all, their aroma and taste were extraordinary. The first thing I noticed was they didn’t have the nauseous, overwhelming smell usually ripe mangoes have. Cut into pieces and eaten raw, the Malian mango was refreshing, firm and its smell was delicate. I would say it was a sophisticated version of the fruit I have been buying here for years. Since the mangoes had to be eaten quickly, we partly had them raw and the rest was preserved in a Mango Chutney with Garam Masala. Now, every opened will bring back the memories of this unusual discovery and make us think about Zeïnabou, a kind and generous lady without whom I would never know what a “good mango” meant. Thank you, Zeïnabou, for the discovery we would have never dreamt of and for the exquisite mango feast we shall never forget!

Mango Chutney with Garam Masala is a smooth, sauce-like type of chutney, different from this, chunky, British-style Mango Chutney and even though the recipe is not genuinely Indian, garam masala gives it a warm, rich Indian touch. The tamarind pulp or sauce can be replaced with lemon juice, but the taste is really better with tamarind.

I found this chutney a long time ago on the Discuss Cooking forum and am particularly grateful to Clive from Venezuela (cliveb) for sharing this excellent recipe, which I have only slightly modified.

I don’t need to add that this particular batch, made with Malian mangoes, was exceptionally luscious!

Preparation: 1 hour (+hot water bath processing)

Ingredients:

2 standard oval mangoes or 1 huge Malian mango

2 cm fresh ginger

120 g raisins

200 g brown, cane sugar

200 ml cider vinegar (4,5%) or white wine vinegar

40 ml tamarind juice/pulp or juice from 1/2 lemon

4 garlic cloves

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds

2 teaspoons garam masala

3 teaspoons chili in powder

Peel the ginger, the mangoes, add the rest and mix in a food processor or a blender.

Cook everything on a medium heat, stirring, for 30-40 minutes.

Adjust the taste if needed (more chili if it’s not hot enough, more vinegar if it’s too sweet and more sugar if it’s too acid). If you have made any modifications, let the chutney boil for 10 more minutes.

/At this point you can (after the chutney has cooled down) either freeze it or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the chutney, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking),, cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the chutney and don’t forget to mark the date.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Mango Chutney with Garam Masala on Punk Domestics

Sweet Pepper and Allspice Spread

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Have you ever tried to deconstruct a dish and create a different texture with the same ingredients? I bet that if the result is satisfactory, you will feel like a professional chef, a magician or you will simply be very proud of your boldness. At least I was when, after mixing and thickening the Pickled Sweet Peppers (see the recipe here), I obtained a highly palatable sweet pepper spread.

I don’t remember how I got this crazy idea, but since the necessity is the mother of invention, I probably had too many peppers and not enough jars to pickle them… I remember I had also been looking for a smoother and less fiery alternative to the hot pepper jellies I make every year. I reduced the liquids, mixed everything, thickened with powdered pectin and, I don’t want to boast, but the result went beyond my expectations. Needless to say, I decided to double or triple the amount of preserved jars this year.

I prepare this spread with Hungarian kapia pepper (red and long), but of course bell peppers and other sweet peppers will also work perfectly well. The more aromatic and ripe the pepper, the better the taste will be. Thanks to the vinegar the colour stays vivid red even after a year spent in the pantry.

I use this spread on toasts, in sandwiches (instead of butter or mayonnaise), with grilled meat, with roast pork, on tarts and in crunchy rolls (see the recipe here). The possibilities are infinite.

Preparation: 2 hours + hot bath processing

Ingredients:

1 kg sweet peppers

400 ml 4,5% vinegar (I used cider vinegar)

450 ml water

170g sugar

2 tablespoons salt

12 allspice grains

1 teaspoon black pepper in grains

1 tablespoon mustard grains

2 small bay leaves or 1 big

8 garlic cloves

60 g powdered pectin

Wash the peppers, core them and remove the stems.

Cut them roughly in four or six pieces.

Combine all the ingredients apart from the red peppers.

Bring them to boil. Throw the peppers into the pan and let everything simmer for 20 minutes.

Put aside for one hour.

Mix everything in a blender. Put back into the pan, add the pectin and bring to boil, constantly stirring.

Let it boil at medium heat for 10-15 minutes.

/At this point you can (after the spread has cooled down) either freeze it or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the spread, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the spread and don’t forget to mark the date.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Sweet Pepper and Allspice Spread on Punk Domestics

Tomato Chutney

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Spices can make miracles and a mixture of Indian spices can transform an ordinary vegetable into a highly palatable side-dish, a cheap meat cut into a fantastic curry and a big bag of cheap, watery tomatoes into a luscious chutney. I learnt the latter last year, when, having bought a bag of rather bland looking tomatoes, I tried to transform them into the ketchup according to my favourite,  Jeffrey Steingarten’s recipe. The result was very disappointing and so far from the one obtained with high quality tomatoes, I decided to look for a different preserving idea.

After some research I managed to save the remaining couple of kilos with an Indian chutney recipe, which really acted as a magic wand. The result is complex, slightly sour, slightly sweet, with an intense tomato flavour and a hot kick from the chili peppers. I don’t remember where I have found it or if I have modified it (I suppose I did), but needless to say, this chutney is simply breathtaking if made with aromatic and ripe tomatoes. As usually the chili amount depends on everyone’s preference and on the chili variety. I use it as a sauce with deep-fried chicken (Chicken Karaage is a good example), with toasted sandwiches, with sausages…

Special equipment: a food mill (a sieve and a spoon may be used instead, but it takes much longer)

Preparation: 2 hours

Ingredients:

1 kg tomatoes

2 tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

2 teaspoons nigella (onion seeds)

3 dried, crushed chili peppers

1 teaspoon powdered chili

100 g sugar (preferably cane sugar)

300 ml apple vinegar (4,5 %)

1 tablespoon salt


Chop roughly the tomatoes.

Put them in a pan, cover, cook over high heat 5-10 minutes, stirring until the chunks give off their juice.

Sieve the tomatoes or put them through a food mill.

Heat the oil in a pan, fry the spices a couple of minutes, add the vinegar and the sugar and let it simmer, stirring, for 10 minutes until the sugar is dissolved.

Add the sieved tomato juice.

Cook over moderate heat until it the chutney has the required consistency (I like it similar to the ketchup consistency).

Taste and add more chili/vinegar or sugar. Let it simmer 10 more minutes.

/At this point you can (after the chutney has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the chutney, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the chutney and don’t forget to mark the date.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Tomato Chutney on Punk Domestics

Apricot and Chili Jelly

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I think I have always enjoyed the mixture of sweet and hot. Hot fruit chutneys, jellies and sauces often accompany my meals and constitute a big part of my seasonal preserves. Since apricot is often paired with savoury dishes and since my favourite pork roast is stuffed with apricots (see the recipe here), combining apricot and chili wasn’t a big risk to take when I first made it last Summer. Apricot resists even the hottest chili addition and doesn’t lose its recognisable tanginess, so this year I labelled one batch as “medium hot “and another as “very hot”. Apart from the pork dishes, the jelly is very good with roast chicken and I often use it as a toast or sandwich spread.

Since every pepper variety is different and everyone has different preferences (or chili resistance level), it is difficult to say exactly how many chilies should be used. Adjusting is not easy since the jelly tastes stronger when it’s still hot (and it should be put still hot into the jars). The best idea is to stick to the same chili variety, make a small first batch, put aside a couple of tablespoons and taste the mixture when it has cooled down. It will be too late for this batch, but it will give and idea of how the following ones should be modified. Needless to say, the below amounts should be treated rather as approximate.

Preparation: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

1 kg apricots

300 – 400 g caster sugar

200 ml cider vinegar (4,5%)

2 flat tablespoons salt

6 medium hot long Turkish “aci sivri” peppers (about 10 cm long, mine were green this time)

1 1/2 package pectin in powder (about 65-70 g)

Wash the apricots and remove the kernels.

Core the peppers, discard the stems and wash thoroughly removing the seeds (or not, if you want a very hot jelly).

Mix the peppers in a food processor. Add the apricots and mix thoroughly.

Combine the mixed fruit with the remaining ingredients in a big pan.

Bring to boil on high heat and, stirring, keep boiling for about 20 minutes.

Taste it and adjust the taste adding the vinegar, the sugar or the chili if needed (bearing in mind the chili and the vinegar taste is stronger when the jelly is hot). The most important is that the mixture doesn’t have a very sour taste (the apricot is a tangy fruit).

Add the pectin and, still stirring, keep on the heat for 10 more minutes.

/At this point you can (after the jelly has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year./

Spoon the jelly, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the jelly and don’t forget to mark the date.

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year.

Apricot and Chili Jelly on Punk Domestics

Hot Pepper Jelly

30 Comments

Since I discovered a passion for preserving about two years ago, pepper jelly jars have been occupying a big space in my pantry. I don’t remember where I took my basic recipe from, but it’s very easy and no matter how much I modify it, it always works and preserves very well. The pepper jelly originates from the Southern United States. It can be prepared as well with sweet peppers as with hot chilies, but a combination of both is what I make most often. Pepper  jellies spice up every dish, cold or warm, I use them as a spread for toast, in sandwiches, on grilled meat and fish, with rice, noodles, mixed them into sauces… In short, if you like a mixture of sweet and hot, make a small batch and see the difference with all the industrially made chili sauces, spreads and pastes you have been buying.

Pepper jelly can be made with any pepper or chili variety, however the more aromatic the pepper, the better the jelly will be. The jelly you see here is the most recent one I made with a mixture of excellent hot and sweet peppers my friend A. very kindly brought me from Hungary (the green one is hot). They were extremely aromatic and flavoursome and made these jelly jars very special, not only tastewise. Thank you so much A.!

The below amounts can be modified according to your preference, but bear in mind the cold jelly is less hot,  the vinegar’s taste is less strong too and the consistency thickens while the jelly cools.

The jelly can be frozen, refrigerated or preserved (see below) and kept for at least a year in the pantry.

Preparation: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

200g sweet peppers

200g moderately hot peppers

200g caster sugar

250 ml cider vinegar (4,5%)

40 g powdered pectin

1 flat tablespoon salt

Core the peppers, discard the stems and wash thoroughly removing the seeds (apart from the hot pepper seeds, if you want your jelly to be hotter; I removed only half of those).

Mix the peppers in a food processor.

Combine them with the remaining ingredients in a big pan.

Bring to boil on high heat and, stirring, keep boiling for about 15 minutes.

Taste it and adjust the taste adding the vinegar, the sugar or the chili if needed.

Add the pectin and, still stirring, keep on the heat for 10 more minutes.

/At this point you can (after the jelly has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year./

Spoon the jelly, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the jelly and don’t forget to mark the date.

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year.

Pepper Jelly on Punk Domestics

Hot Strawberry Sauce

24 Comments

Posting the same recipe year after year looks probably weird, but I simply cannot resist presenting once more this extraordinary and surprising strawberry sauce. Last year I invented it for the first time, inspired by the strawberry BBQ sauce recipes I kept on seeing on internet and stripping them down to vinegar, sugar, peppers and strawberries.  I was amazed – and still am – at how hot peppers bring out the strawberry flavours. I thought I had preserved enough of the sauce to survive a year, but I was wrong. The tiny jars and bottles were disappearing so quickly, I had to limit myself to a certain amount opened every month. Now that the strawberry season has started I plan to make as many batches as I can manage and make sure I will not be forced to limit my consumption.

I used once more the Peruvian aji panca dried peppers, with their typical, but subtle smoky flavour. I buy them in a small shop selling the US, Mexican and Peruvian food products. Of course, if you cannot get aji panca, use any dried, moderately hot, but preferably whole peppers, without seeds. The taste will be very good too.

The sauce can be used straight away, kept in the fridge for at least a month, frozen practically forever or processed in sealed jars/bottles and kept in the pantry for one-two years. It’s excellent on grilled poultry and pork, on toast, on open sandwiches, with fried/grilled tofu, as a dip for dumplings, spring rolls, vegetables or savoury biscuits…

This time my strawberries were a bit acid, but the sauce was still fabulous. The colour depends on the fruit variety and the vinegar. This time it was particularly dark and I preferred it this way.

Preparation: 45 minutes+jars processing

Ingredients:

300g strawberries

100 – 150g white sugar

200 ml (white) wine or cider vinegar (mine was 4,5%)

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 whole dried aji panca peppers without stems and seeds (you can use any kind of  dried moderately hot peppers)

Wash the strawberries, remove the caps and stems.

Put all the vinegar and 100g sugar in a pan, add the whole peppers and let them simmer for 10 minutes on a very low heat. Put aside.

Mix the warm liquid in a blender, add the strawberries and salt, mix again. Pour back to the pan and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Check if the sauce is sweet enough and, if necessary, add more sugar (or vinegar if you think it’s too sweet). Let it simmer for 10 more minutes.

/At this point you can (after the sauce has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the sauce, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, the bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the sauce and don’t forget to mark the date.

Mango Chutney

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Imported from different parts of the world mango is available all year round in Europe. The mangoes I buy in January usually come from Brazil and multiply the number of the jars preserved in Winter. I have never been a big fan of mango in sweet dishes or preserves, but together with the Hot Mango Sauce, chutney is one of my favourite transformations of this aromatic fruit. Apart from every chicken dish I can think of, this sweet and hot chutney is the best company I could imagine for the fried fat liver.

“Chutney” comes from the Hindi word “chatni” meaning pounding in to a pulp or finger-licking good. Indian chatni is a hot sauce, eaten freshly made. The British adopted the chatni during the colonial times, transforming it with time into their own, preserving versions, containing almost always raisins, cloves, sugar and vinegar. Usually made with fruit, chutney is nowadays one of the British staples and has gone quite far from its Indian origins.

This recipe is a compilation of several British-style chutney recipes I have found on internet. The amount of chilies (fresh or dried) depend on personal preference and resistance. Adjust it bearing in mind the warm chutney tastes hotter than the cold one. On the other hand, it will get hotter with time. The amount I give here makes – in my opinion – a medium hot chutney, but it becomes quite hot after 6 months spent in jars. Do not exaggerate however with the clove. It easily overwhelms the whole taste. If the mango is very ripe, it doesn’t require very long cooking and keeps the lovely yellow colour. However, even the underripe fruit makes a good chutney, unfortunately after long cooking hours it becomes brownish.

Preparation: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

3 yellow flesh mangoes

300g brown or white sugar

250 ml cider vinegar (4,5%)

6 heaped tablespoons raisins

5 cm chopped fresh ginger

2 tablespoons chopped garlic (approx. 3 garlic cloves)

2 tablespoons salt

1 tablespoon ground cloves

2 tablespoons crushed dried chili  or 3 fresh bird’s-eye chilies (with seeds if you want it really hot)

Peel the mango and cut it into small pieces. Put everything together in a pan and cook on medium heat for at least 30 minutes (or more, until the mango is soft enough to be crushed with a spoon).

Taste it and adjust the taste adding the vinegar, the sugar or the chili if needed.

/At this point you can (after the chutney has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year./

Spoon the chutney, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the chutney and don’t forget to mark the date.

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year.

This chutney is perfect with fried fat liver and roast or fried chicken.

Dried Apricot and Chili Jelly

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This autumn I sowed the grains too late, but somehow managed to grow red hot peppers on my balcony at hardly 10°C. I assumed there are certain countries where pepper season is almost all year round and stopped worrying if the Thai or Moroccan chilies I buy were grown in a greenhouse or outside. I shall never know anyway. Having made several hot dishes, I was still left with a lot of red peppers and started looking for new preserving recipes. This way I discovered the Canadian  Bernardin Home Canning website, full of inspiring ideas, found there the Habanero Gold Jelly and … have completely ignored it, only stealing the excellent idea to combine dried apricots and chilies.

The result was sweet and hot, with a slight acid hint, due to the apricots’ presence. In fact, my jelly looked much merrier than the one featured on the Bernardin website. It was very thick, with a lovely golden-orange colour reminding of hot, Summer days, and had a definitely warming effect on the palate, perfect for these cold gloomy days! It is wonderful served with stir-fried vegetables, chicken, rice, in sandwiches… and in my opinion ideal with grilled or fried scallops.

Preparation: 30 minutes+ 30 min (apricot soaking time)

Ingredients (approx. 4 x 200ml jars):

350g dried apricots finely cut or mixed in a food processor

300 +100 ml cider vinegar (4,5%)

200g red moderately hot peppers (mine were red, came from Thailand and were more or less of the middle finger’s length)

400 g caster sugar

100 ml water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 package pectin in powder (45g)

Bring the 300 ml vinegar to boil. Put aside.

Add the apricots and let them soak for 30 minutes. Take them out and chop finely.

Chop the hot peppers finely (discard the stalks and seeds) or mix them in a food processor.

Combine all the remaining ingredients (including 100 ml vinegar) with the vinegar and let them boil 20 minutes, constantly stirring.

Add the pectin and cook 10 more minutes.

Spoon the hot jelly into sterilised jars, cover with lids.

Leave the jars to cool.

/At this point you can (after the jelly has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year./

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the jelly and don’t forget to mark the date.

Pickled Pepper

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I often used to buy pickled sweet pepper, but there was always something wrong… too much oil, too much vinegar, not enough spices… When I tried to find tips for pickling peppers at home, one of my friends sent me her boss’s extraordinary recipe. At the time I didn’t even suspect it would be the best pickled pepper ever and that it would become the pride of my  pantry. Thank you A.! This recipe is so perfect, I have never been tempted to modify it, in spite of tens of batches I have pickled since. Such a pity you live too far to let me offer you some jars.

This pickle  has a sweet, rich peppery taste and aroma, with strong presence of garlic and spices. The addition of a small quantity of oil makes it smooth and even more delicate. You should wait at least a couple of weeks before tasting, but this pickle largely improves with time.

Every variety of pepper can be pickled this way. The most important is that it is fresh and ripe. The stronger the peppers’ aroma the better the pickle will be. People usually pickle bell peppers, but my preference goes lately to the long Hungarian “kapia” variety. They don’t have as much flesh, but I find their taste and aroma more intense.

 

Preparation: 1 hour+processing

Ingredients:

1.5 kg (3,3 pounds) sweet peppers

about 20 peeled garlic cloves

up to 10 bay leaves

a couple of teaspoons mustard grains

a couple of teaspoons black pepper grains

2-3 teaspoons allspice grains

1 litre (about 4 cups) cider/white wine/other alcohol vinegar (mine was 4,5%, if you use a stronger one, add proportionally more water)

1.1 litre (about 4 cups and 3 oz) water

400 g (1 3/4 cups) caster sugar

3 tablespoons salt

olive oil (or other good quality oil)

Cut the peppers’ stems, discard all the seeds and white parts. Cut them into 2-3 cm pieces.

Fill in empty jars with pepper pieces (no more than 2/3 jars’ height), add 2 garlic cloves, 3 allspice berries, 3 pepper grains, 6 mustard grains and 1 bay leaf per every 500 ml jar.

Put the vinegar, the water, the sugar and the salt in a pan and let it boil a couple of minutes, stirring well until all the sugar is dissolved. Put aside.

Fill the jars with hot (no longer boiling!) vinegar mixture, leaving 1,5 cm from the rim. Pour a generous tablespoon of oil in each jar. Close the jars and let them cool down.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the pickle and don’t forget to mark the date.

Wait at least a couple of weeks before opening the jars. As do most pickles, this one improves with time. Pickled peppers are perfect with cold meats, in sandwiches, on toast, as a side dish…

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Pickled Sweet Pepper with Allspice on Punk Domestics

Plum/Damson and Tamarind Chutney

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This is one of the numerous ways I transformed the huge amount of plums I was offered this year. Jams and sauces were an obvious choice, but I was very reluctant to try making a chutney again, since my last year’s experience was really disappointing. However, faced with so many kilos of plums to transform I tried to make out which ingredient could have spoiled the taste of my previous plum chutney. Onion was one of the candidates, so as soon as I saw a recipe without it, something told me I ought to try it. I found it on The Cottage Smallholder website, but slightly modified it, omitting grapes and putting more plums instead. I also crushed all the spices in a mortar. In spite of these changes the result was stunning! No more onions in my future plum chutneys!

This chutney is supposed to be cooked slowly for many hours and, as you observe the taste changing throughout the process, you understand why! It gets better every hour. At the beginning I was wondering whether I should mix everything just before putting into jars, but at a certain point the cinnamon stick and other spices simply started to fall into pieces and melt into the sticky and very dark paste.

Preparation: around 10 hours (can be divided into several days)

Ingredients:

1350g plums (mine were damsons, or at least very similar to damsons)

450g seedless grapes ( I simply put more plums, since I didn’t have grapes

1 lemon sliced fine (seeds discarded)

300g dried apricots (chopped at least into eight pieces)

200g dried sultanas

225g-450g soft brown sugar, depending on how sweet your plums are

125g tamarind block (soaked for 20 minutes in a mug of boiling water then sieve and reject the seeds) or 2 tablespoons tamarind paste. I added the tamarind infused water to the chutney too.

5cm stick of cinnamon

2 large garlic cloves chopped fine

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 teaspoon  salt

3 teaspoons allspice berries

1 teaspoon ground ginger

750 ml white wine vinegar

3 small hot bird’s eye chillies (seeds removed) Chopped fine

2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

5 juniper berries

15 black peppercorns

2 heaped teaspoons yellow mustard seed

Crush the spices in a mortar. Stone the plums, cut up roughly. Put everything into a big pan (at the beginning put only 225g sugar). After around 5 hours check the acidity level and see if you should add more sugar. Let the chutney simmer on a very low heat for at least one day (I cooked it for 2 days, totally for more than 10 hours).

Spoon the hot chutney into sterilised jars, cover with lids.

Leave the jars to cool.

/At this point you can (after the chutney has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year./

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the chutney and don’t forget to mark the date.

Hot Plum Sauce with White Wine

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Filling up my pantry with jars has become inevitable in the summer, unless I stop shopping at my market. Even when I don’t plan buying anything for storage, there is always something so irresistible and beautiful, that when I finally come back home I see bags filled with fruit in quantities I’ll never manage to eat before they start rotting. The plums I saw were supposed to finish their existence in a pie, but I finally didn’t feel like baking for several days.

Trying to save the plums from the dustbin I started to look for something interesting to do and finally have chosen the plum sauce from “Jasmine Cuisine“, a lovely French Canadian food blog I have recently discovered. I modified the recipe aiming at a lazier version (e.g. I didn’t discard the skins as Jasmine did), so my sauce got very dark and wasn’t as beautiful as hers. I also added more spices, since my plums were a bit bland. In spite of that the result was surprisingly delicious and beautiful. The sauce goes perfectly with pork and is a yummy variation in sandwiches or on toast (must be also delicious with dim sum or other Chinese dumplings, as Jasmine suggests). ‘Somehow I feel this won’t be the last plum sauce I make this summer…

Preparation: around 1h 15 minutes+processing

Ingredients (my modified version, using 1 kg plums weighed before removing stones):

1 kg red round plums, weighed with stones

2 garlic cloves

1 big onion

180 ml cider vinegar (mine was 4,5%)

175 cane sugar

100 ml dry white wine

1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds

1 teaspoon ground cinammon

1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger root

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 ground cloves

7 tiny pili pili (bird’s eye) green peppers, with seeds (if you want to obtain a very hot sauce)


Dissolve sugar in vinegar and wine, warming it on a low heat.

Remove the plums’ stones, add the fruit to the above mixture, together with all the remaining ingredients. (click here to read my tips on preserving with hot peppers)

Let it simmer for around one hour. Mix it in a blender. Pour back to the pan, adjust the taste if necessary and cook 15 minutes or more if you want your sauce to be thicker.

/At this point you can (after the sauce has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the sauce, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the sauce and don’t forget to mark the date.

NOTE: For the readers who live in the USA, the USDA-approved canning method is different. You can find it described here: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/using_bw_canners.html.

Hot Plum Sauce with White Wine on Punk Domestics

Hot Mango Sauce

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One is always advised to preserve only seasonal produce. I have no idea if July is the mango season, especially since it does not grow here and since I see it all year round on my market. Sometimes I am lucky to stumble upon big, ripe and cheap mangoes and then I can’t stop myself from buying some and filling jars for my pantry. This time I decided to do some more hot and sweet mango sauce.

This quick and easy sauce has a beautiful intense and sunny colour. It is delicious on roast pork, chicken, on toasts, rice, green salad, as a dip…

Several tips for those who are not used to handle hot peppers:

1-Wear gloves while washing or cutting them !

2- Add your peppers gradually. They vary a lot in size, in hotness, and even the same variety can be completely different depending on the season and country of origin.  I always mix peppers and add them gradually until the sauce acquires the desired taste.

3-Do not throw away the seeds if you want the sauce to be even hotter! (they are the hottest part of the peppers).

4- Keep in mind that the warm sauce is always hotter in taste than the cold one…

5- Decide the colour you want to obtain. If you add green peppers the sauce doesn’t usually change colour. It stays beautifully yellow with some green spots. When using red peppers,  be prepared for a slight change of coulour: it becomes orange or even reddish (if cooked for a longer time). I made those two with the same mango, but different peppers:

6-Make notes of the exact proportions of your sauce together with the date you’ll put on your jar label. This way next time you’ll know how to modify it if it is not perfect.

Preparation: around 30 minutes + a couple of hours for cooling + 20 minutes for processing

Ingredients: (2 mangoes will yield around 3-4 200ml jars, but it depends on the fruits’ juiciness and ripeness)

2 mangoes

1 T salt

200 g (1 cup) sugar

200 ml (6 3/4 oz) white wine or cider vinegar (mine was 4,5% acid)

preferably fresh, red or green hot peppers (I put 3 flat tablespoons of tiny “bird’s eye” peppers and my sauce was quite hot)




Cut off the peppers’ stems. Cut in half lengthwise and throw away the seeds (or not! if you want your sauce extra hot).

Mix the peppers in a food processor. Put aside.

Peel the mangoes, cut up the flesh. Mix the mangoes in a food processor.

Place the mixed mangoes, the sugar, the salt and the vinegar in a heavy bottom pan (shouldn’t be aluminium or copper, otherwise the vinegar will react with the metal).
Add the chilies gradually (for example starting with half of the amount). Cook for around 30 minutes. Taste and, optionally, add sugar /vinegar/peppers to adjust the taste.

/At this point you can (after the sauce has cooled down) either freeze it, or keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or process it in the jars, as described below, and store it in your pantry for at least a year!/

Pour the sauce, still hot, into sterilised jars. Cover with lids. Leave the jars to cool.

Place the cool jars into a big pan, bottom lined with an old kitchen towel folded in two (this will prevent the jars from breaking), cover up with hot – but not boiling- water to the level just below the lid. Bring to boil and keep on a very low heat, in simmering water, for around 20 minutes.
Stick on self-adhesive labels, write the name of the sauce and don’t forget to mark the date (do not forget to put down the exact amounts of every ingredient you used).

In a dry place, with a moderate temperature, the jars should keep for at least a year.

Hot Mango Sauce on Punk Domestics